Rogue of Life
by S1lverhair
Summary: A woman floats in space, it is the 23rd of September 2183, it just so happens that today is the day she dies. Rated T for mild language, killer robots, kleptomania, rocket Krogan, FTL thermoneucular madness, Hard Science Fiction and videogame violence, may change. Spoilers for Homestuck and MassEffect2.
1. Prologue

A woman floats in space, it is the 23rd of September 2183, it just so happens that today is the day she dies.

Her name is Commander Jane Shepard as previously mentioned today is the day she dies. Scattered around her is the remains of her ship floating through the airless void.

She has a variety of interests including, among other things, LIVING TO SEE ANOTHER DAY.

She can't do that now, she is busy dying.

Other interests include the 'APPROPRIATION AND REDISTRIBUTION' of operational assets (or anything really) and she is known to be the single best 'redistributor' of military grade small arms back to law enforcement in council space. She has a fondness for SNOOPING and being precisely where she is LEAST WANTED, which has served her well in her career as an INFILTRATOR.

What will she do?

**Pull something from her sylladex to survive.**

Not on the cards I'm afraid, her SLIGHT OF HAND modus contains many things from perfectly legal security passcards (appropriated) to a slightly used (ventilated) M35 Mako, appropriated when no-one was looking. But precious little which can get her out of this and that which would help her the modus wont let her access.

**Grasp at straws.**

There are no straws nor anything of the type upon which to grasp, I'm afraid that the last of her air is gone.

**Lose consciousness.**

As she looses consciousness. Her last impression of the living world is of red, horns and wings?

**Awaken.**

The rogue jolts out of her bed gasping for air, before her is a elegant ivory carapacian wearing a strange golden Ring.

"Rogue of Life, Welcome to Prospit."

* * *

This is a homestuck/mass-effect crossover. Each property is the belongs to Hussie and Bioware respectively and I claim nothing.

This Fic assumes mass effect knowledge but i will be playing reasonably fast and loose with the rules in order to merge the considerably Skhitzo-tech applications and effects of things appearing in homestuck. Echeladders are a thing (rpg type levels) and each of the players starts off at about the level of power as Dad or Mom from homestuck. everyone gets echeladders/levels so expect some surprisingly tough baddies.

I will try my hardest to keep the physics and other science fiction elements as hard as possible within the stated phlebotinum in universe and in the background I am running the numbers on precisely what it possible, plausible or absolute bullshit. If I cock it up, tell me and I'll either show my working or make a change. I am the author so i reserve the right to tell you to sod off. Acts of God/Players are not covered by this guarantee as are the fact that high level characters can do things that should not be strictly possible.

There will be regular Codex entries to help define the setting and define the interpretation of cannon which i am using in this fic, if you want a detailed explanation of something drop me a PM or review and ill consider putting together a codex entry. The same goes for plot holes and egregious grammar errors.

Reviews and suggestions are welcome as this is my first fic and I may end up running out of ideas. Go Nuts.


	2. Chapter 1: Station

Chapter 1: Station

Alarms sounded through her room, the rogue's eyes flashed open, instantly awake, assassination attempts got old after awhile.

"...Shepard your scars aren't healed but this base is under attack..."

Wait, Shepard, no one had called her that since... she looked around the room and instead of the warm golden light of the Prospitan city the room was a dull gray with clean white lines to the furniture, medical furniture.

In the land of the living, the roar of gunfire thundered in the background while Jane took stock of her surroundings. The room was grey metallic, human architecture rather than carapacian or alien. Attempting to move her limbs barely responded, he fingers twitched and the feeling in her skin was faint, distant. Slowly tried to take a breath and meditated, her bioamp responding to her body as it had always. The feeling was alien however, the her limbs puppeted by the directed gravitics of her biotics. She fell back against the bed, that was no way to move, let alone fight. Trying again to move with her muscles, this time with the aid of biotics, the amp connection embedded in her brainstem might be able to help her. To her surprise she lurched with the merest application of willpower, throwing her self from the bed and faceplanting onto the steel floor.

Okay. That worked. Kinda. Carefully she moved her hands slowly pushing herself off the floor. The sensation was alien, her muscles were responding through the cybernetic interface of her bioamp. Reaching up to the base of her skull the familiar bioamp interface port was gone, in its place a thin slit ran up the back of her head, to the point of where her omni-interface port should be. She attempted to access what should be her omni-tool, and was momentarily stunned by the flood of information that swamped her brain. She had been rebuilt from the ground up, most of her body was synthenic, with organic components growing through it. Her skeleton was laced with metals osteocytes, re-engineered to maintain the structure. Her muscles were similar, virtually every part of her body had been reshaped, hardened, engineered and reinforced. Her neural system had seen the most drastic changes, her mind was intact but all of the automatic systems which, in a normal human would manage everything from heartbeat to arms but now was replaced with a mass of high density electronics, all of it linked through what she now recognized used to be her tech interfaces.

Alright, control of her actual body like it was a virtual one, easy enough, she'd done enough VR training programs in her life. Attempting to stand she held to the edge of her bed, thin tubular steel buckling under the strength of the cybernetic monstrosity she had become. She took a stuttering step, and another moving towards a nearby cabinet, she let go of the bed taking another uncertain step, and another, and another, and a...Shit. With a thud she hit the floor, her feet betraying her and the artificial gravity of the station mocking her. Swearing enough to make even the hardest of sailors blush she pulled herself upright, ransacking the cabinet. Inside she found a Blank strife modus and cards containing equipment designed just for her. Armor, a stripped down omnitool, heavy pistol, heatsinks, grenades. Someone was expecting trouble.

The door crashed open, a Loki mech standing in the frame flanked by two of its brethren stepped into the room. In a blur the pistol was in her hand and three shots rang out across the room. The mechs stood for a moment before falling, holes punctured clean through their chassis by the pistol. The heat sink clattered to the ground as Jane let her arm drop. Combat reflexes were as good as ever, good to know. More gunfire sounded outside as Jane donned the armor the pieces fitting easily over her augmented frame. The last piece slotted into place and it activated, gravitic servos supporting Jane and the control systems linking through her omni-interface.

Armor. She stopped for a moment letting her body settle in the armor, move like you're in armor. She took a step, sure of herself, she took another and another. The old movements came back to her, just move like you're wearing powered armor, all the time. Sheesh.

Thunder sounded outside the door, blue plasma trails left by hypersonic rounds traced across the doorway as more mechs moved into view. In a flash Jane fabricated a sabotage grenade throwing it at the machines and closing in a blur. The unsuspecting robots faltered as their weapons jammed and the armored cyborg tore into them, disabling them with care, tearing out their microfusion generators before storing the broken remains safely in her sylladex.

Commander Shepard was back.

Enough moping, killer robots, space station, looting. Not in that order. Coming back to her senses she stripped the med bay and outside cleanroom of anything of value. The coldness of the machinery throughout he body felt metallic and unalive. Taking a moment to examine a a few of the more unusual technical matters while idly pilfering a fine selection of dental equipment, she hit the goldmine. In addition to the cybernetic rebuild and resurrection her benefactors had given her a variety of special upgrades. Her bioamp configuration now mimicked both the Asari style 5X and the Krogan favored LN setup, her skin and armor was embedded with exotic meta-materials, she could refract light well enough to become nearly invisible and her armor held the latest integrated fabber arrays for both suspended ablative armor and axillary meta-material layers.

Wan smile touching her lips she activated her cloaking device, her skin becoming transparent and thin sheets of material floating around her she became invisible to all but the most careful observers.

She swept through the station, taking it in her stride and pilfering everything she could find. Stripping rooms to their bones and beginning to feel the reassuring weight of a full sylladex again. She came to the hub of her level, a dozen mechs, mostly Loki backed up by the single immense shape of a Ymir preparing a breaching operation against a heavily armored door. Slowly moving behind the hulking machine Jane activated her omniblade, the thin blade of carbon reinforced silica formed in her right hand, suspended in her gravitic shields she analyzed the machine, spotting the faint radio glow emitted by the power supply of the primary processor. the hilt finished manufacturing and the completed knife dropped into her waiting hand. Deactivating all mass effect fields the woman snuck up to the oblivious machine, taking aim before lancing the knife through a gap in the ballistic armor. The knife pierced the metallic frame of the mech easily, propelled by the cyborg's prodigious strength and neatly bisected the processor, killing the machines command system. The lesser machines didn't notice the fall of their support, no alarm arose in response to the perfect backstab. Jane fabricated a small sabotage grenade, waiting as the machines finally breached the door. They swarmed into the open room none even noticing the small single shot transmitter bouncing about their feet. The grenade detonated, the pulse of the transmitter forcing their weapons to overheat, providing Jane a moment of cover as they franticly tried to reload. She moved quickly, cloak still active and reached the mechanical horde in moment. Loki mechs are not good at close quarters combat, a fact that is never more apparent when they are faced by a heavily armed Spectre. Jane tore through the machines, her simple knife lancing through gaps in their armor plating, severing servos and shorting processors. For those her knife couldn't reach Jane, used a weak biotic lift to immobilize them. In moments the mechanical army fell to pieces, more literally than not.

The room, so heavily defended appeared to be nothing special, an open plan office, five desks scattered around the room, idle terminals playing reports at the undead spectre. In the far corner of the room a wall plating had slid aside to reveal an idle transportalyser.

She took everything, physical or digital, the medical reports, the data logs, the computers, interfaces, holographic displays even the water cooler failed to escape 'appropriation'. She steadied herself for a moment, absorbing the information she had just gathered. The office was something special, it housed the station's executive staff operating around the focus of what was only referred to as the Lazarus Project. The files she gleaned form the poorly secured machines answered mony of the questions of what had been done to her and where she was. Rebuilt from the ground up brought back from the brink of death itself... again. But this time it wasn't clean, there wasn't an easy escape route like the first time, so Cerberus had put her back together as best they could.

But Cerberus?

What would make them so desperate that Cerberus would spend such a fortune and one of their best operatives to revive the person who had 'appropriated and redistributed' over 200 million credits of Cerberus assets and hardware as well as destroying over a dozen times that value in experienced personnel, exotic samples and hardware that even Shepard's prodigious talent could not appropriate. Presumably Agent Lawson would have the answers, she recognized the voice over the intercom as attached to the recordings. Her desk was placed in in the far corner near the transportalyser, overseeing the other senior station staff. Meeting her would be... Interesting.

Stepping on the transportalyser the sounds of sustained combat echoed from around a corner. Rounding the bend revealed a black human swearing creatively in an American accent holding his own admirably against a large squad of Loki with Ymir backup. The man hiding behind some heavy crates, already heavily chewed by the mass accelerator combat. Shepard allowed her cloak to drop as she moved in beside him 'Soldier report?'

'Shepard... what the?'

'Report.'

'I'm Jacob Taylor, Someone hacked the security mechs and things must be real bad if Miranda has you walking around. What I've got here is just a bunch of Loki mechs with that Ymir bastard backing them. They can't make it across the chasm but the assault mech has me pinned and these crates wont hold out forever.' a slug exploded through the crate to his left as he spoke. 'We need to scrap these bastards and get to the shuttle bay.'

'Jacob Taylor...' her eyes glassed over as she pulled up his file from the staff dossiers she collected earlier. Jacob Taylor, marine, former alliance, biotic, Vanguard. 'Jacob i need you to warp the Ymir, mask their sensors. On my mark.'

The black man prepared himself producing a large faint warp field between his hands. 'Mark.'

On cue Jacob rolled out of cover projecting a large, faint and particularly messy warp at the Ymir. Jane on the other side of the crates took the moment of distraction to propel herself to the other side of the room, clean over the chasm and landing on the far side of the Ymir just as the warp began to dissipate. With her cloaking device active and her skin transparent the machines hadn't even noticed her. Excellent.

StolenShadow began commanding KineticMarine

SS:Jacob, on cue take the bogeys on your left.

StolenShadow ceased commanding KineticMarine

The assault cannon of the Ymir abruptly came to a halt as a pair a sabotage grenades detonated. Jacob rolled from cover and charged ath the machine closest to his left. He traversed the distance in less than a second, slamming into the unsuspecting machine with the force of a freight train. The machines nearest companions were thrown back by the kinetic pulse, some falling into the chasm while another found itself being used as an impromptu bludgeon. Swinging his victim by its remaining leg Jacob swiftly destroyed the remainder of the machines. Looking to his left at an impressed Commander Shepard, her side of the room stripped to the bulkheads Jacob gave a sheepish grin, letting the disembodied leg fall to the ground.

'Room clear commander.'

'Indeed'

'Nice work yourself, it's good to see you in the land of the living. Those cybernetics giving you trouble?'

'They aren't alive, they're part of me but I can't feel them. Not really. The tactical cloak makes up for a lot though.' Shepard admitted,

'Good to see you aren't falling apart on us.' Jacob's communicator chirps, 'Taylor here.'

'Jacob it's Wilson, shit, its chaos, I can see you and the commander on the security camera. You need to get out of there. Head through the service ducts to the network control room. I've hacked a transportalyser, then it's a straight shot to the shuttle bay.'

'Commander, thoughts?'

'Wilson this is Commander Shepard, its a good plan we'll be there shortly.'

Pulling up the local map in her minds eye, now more an actual schematic dredged from the appropriated files than a mental construct built from experience. It was like working with the more esoteric forms of fetch modi. She and Jacob moved through the Disused network of tunnels criss crossing the space station efficiently dealing with numerous Loki mechs via a combination of biotic power, tech trickery, raw firepower, invisibility based shenanigans and comical amount of smashing. Passing several data-stations and server rooms on their journey Shepard took the opportunity to delve further into encrypted Cerberus records of her recovery.

In addition to the extensive physical rebuild of Shepard's physical body and replacement of a great deal of her autonomic nervous system with cybernetic equivalents allowing her instinctive access to her new cybernetic components. They were connected via the same network which she was using to control her muscles and body, an unalive cybernetic network. She'd have to talk to Tali about that, even the simplest of the Quarian's machines felt like they had the semblance of life. What was most interesting about the reports was the response her body had to the treatment, the doctors had registered a remarkable regeneration among the components of her body which were, at best, not quite dead, something almost unheard of. The only precedence is among the dreamers, after the shift 4% of the dreamers exhibited matching symptoms, sudden regeneration of nercotized flesh, regrowth of damaged body-parts. Some are even still alive well over 170 years after the shift without longevity therapy, old and frail certainly, but alive. Conspicuously absent from the medical reports is the inclusion of any control mechanisms or kill switches, an oddity, especially for an organization as paranoid as Cerberus.

Clearing the last corner to the network control room sounds of panicked gunfire rang out from the doorway ahead kneeling behind some heavy crates the man who called them. Wilson, biologist, doctor, regeneration specialist, fought for his life against a small squad of Loki mechs invading from the far door of the room, stunning them with an overload grenade. A combination of pull and incinerate finished the stunned attackers. Wilson collapsed against the storage crate he was hiding behind, a chunk of flesh missing from his left leg where a pistol round snicked it. 'Jacob, man it's good to see you. The hanger deck isn't far away just out through the transportalyser. but I'm not going to be able to move until i get some omni-gel for my leg.' The bald man swore as he gingerly rolled over to face his rescuers. 'Don't worry Wilson I'll patch you up.' Volunteered Jacob as he knelt to tend the man's wound. 'What are you doing here anyway?'

Wilson groaned in pain as Jacob tended to his wounds. 'AAGH, that's better. I was in medical down on H deck when the mechs started going berserk, they just started killing everyone. I snuck up here just as they started doing a basic security run. I disabled my tracer and made it to here to see if I could shut the bastards down.' as Wilson spoke his breathing got more measured and the bleeding on his leg stopped and the medigel began to knit a seal over the wound.

'Your dossier doesn't mention any mech or hacking skills just biology.' Shepard ransacking the room for useful (not bolted down) supplies.

'Not officially no.' said Wilson struggling to get up, 'But be and my roommate back in college fought robots in the uni underground. Kept up the gig while I worked for Cerberus. The take from some of those fights were... Substantial. My biggest competitor on the station was Jones over there.' he gestured to a body in the corner. 'Found what was left of him in the room when I got here, mustn't have put himself on the correct IFF when he hacked the security. Got killed by his own bots.'

On examination the body had several small holes in its chest, exit wounds in his back big enough to fit your fist in, SMG hits. 'To make it worse before they got him the bastard managed to fry out most of the advanced mech control hardware. the best I could do was remove any semblance of squad to squad communications from the things before I got jumped. We wont be able to shut them down.' he finished, getting off the floor and limping off towards the door. 'I noticed. What about Lawson?'

'Last I saw she was trying to make her way to the shuttle bay from E deck. I told her to turn off her tracer to prevent the mechs tracking her, she could be anywhere.'

'Given her dossier if she's still alive she'll find us. Are you good to go?' Shepard asked finishing her looting. 'As good as I'm gonna be.' the man replied favoring his right leg

'Okay. Jacob, take point.' said the Rogue as they moved to the exit.

'Commander before we go there's something you need to know, the alliance declared you dead and..'

'Cerberus spent 7 billion credits and change to bring me back.' Shepard interrupted him,'Your scientists should pay more attention to their cybersecurity, there was only five layers of encryption and two firewalls.' she grinned as the black man stared at her flabbergasted. 'In any case thank you for being upfront with me. It's a stark change from the Cerberus I've had to deal with in the past. But I'm still puzzled as to why I'm back.'

'Not my answer to give Commander, the boss will want to talk to you once we get out of this. I hope he'll give you the answers you need.'

'Right lets move out'

As the three of them filed onto the transportalyser in the side of the room, hacked to lead near the the lower shuttle maintenance bay they spread out, Wilson drawing fire and disrupting the enemy through concerted overload mines keeping to cover as best he could. Shepard moved around the edges, stunning, pilfering, incinerating and decapitating as she went taking out isolated targets attempting to flank the rounded scientist or just outside of the the protection of their fellows. Jacob in contrast to the commander's stealth tactics charged the largest concentrations of machines he could find, relying on Wilson and Shepard's tech mines to keep the other mechs ineffective enough to protect him from counterfire as he lay into them with shotgun, biotics and blungeon. As the last mech was sundered into its constituent components the trio moved towards the trio moved to the active launch bay.

'Jacob, I'm reading one human lifesign beyond the door, biotic, may be hostile.'

'Noted.'

The doors slid open revealing several prepped shuttles and a human female, covered in the golden glow of ablative armor, her face invisible from behind the golden plating. She was standing behind a barricade, trin postols trained against the trio entering the room.

'Miranda.' Jacob called out to the woman who took a moment to allow her weapons to fall.

'Jacob, I see you've brought the commander up to speed. Wilson, thank you for the advice, you saved a lot of people today.'

'Anytime Miss Lawson'

'Take the shuttles with the other survivors to rally point B, Jacob and I need to take the commander to see the boss.' Wilson nodded and ran to the other shuttle, its doors closed preparing for takeoff.

'Good, lets go see your boss, TIM wasn't it. I'm curious why I'm back.'

'You told her?' Miranda arched an eyebrow at Jacob.

'I tried to. Lying to the commander isn't the way to gain her trust. But appears that our cybersecurity leaves something to be desired.'

'You have the project reports?'

'And the medical files, the staff payroll, water-cooler, computers and server.'

'water-cooler?'

'Infiltrator.' Shepard waited a moment for it to sink in, watching a group of mechs arrive in the maintenance bay through her neural interface. The Cerberus operatives exchanged a look, each well versed on the Alliance Infiltrators 'unique' take on scorched earth tactics. 'We need to get moving I'm not getting any life signs from the rest of the station and there's another group of mechs closing on the hanger.'

The three moved to the final shuttle, their pilot took off leaving behind what was left of the Cerberus station. The lights on the immense construct flickering out as the reactor went into emergency shutdown becoming a shadow in the void of deep space.

* * *

Codex:

Sylladex:

A form of Old Earth Skaiatech the Sylladex allows the user to store and retrieve items of any sort within cards which exist slightly out of reality. This allows a person with enough cards to carry a truly prodigious amount of cargo. The limitations and benefits of anyone's sylladex is dependent on the modus they use. Some like the array modus, allow a user to access any item at any time but have strict limitations on item size. While others allow the storage of prodigiously large items but catchpalouging (collecting) and retrieval only under very specific conditions.

Modus, Sleight of Hand:

The slight of hand modus, like the pictionary modus, is an entry/exit modus it's only limitations is that the object must be catchpalouged without anyone noticing it's happening either through inference or observation. To retrieve no one must notice where the item really came from. If there is not reasonable doubt about the source of the item or where it has gone the modus is aggravatingly obstinate. However those skilled in the art can collect and retrieve truly ridiculous items almost at will. A firm favorite of N Infiltrators particularly those with kleptomaniac tendencies.

Strife Specibus:

The Strife specibus is a offshoot of sylladex technology and allows the user to store one or more items of a certain category and retrieve them at will. Each strife specibus can be assigned an item type, examples include: Riflekind, Hammerkind and FancySantakind. Selecting a Kind for a strife specibus restricts the items it can store but allows faster and more instinctive retrieval of items proportional to the degree of restriction on the specibus.

Skaiatech:

technology which originated on skaia and the skaian cluster. Tied heavily with the history of the gods and the carapacian people, skaiatech predominantly focuses on the ability to interact with an alternate dimension known colloquially as The Furthest Ring. Skaiatech devices, primaraly manufactured in the Sol system allow 'Platform to Plaform' teleportation, antigravity effects as well as make viable a variety of directed energy weapons. In addition skaian technology also includes the cloning vats that the Carapacian peoples use for reproduction as well as basic variants of numerous genetic alteration technologies which have since been perfected by the Trolls.

Within the vaults of Prospit and Derse are also a variety of non functional devices, claimed to have been manufactured or used by the gods. While none of the devices are operational, important advances have been derived from them in the fields of manufacturing, sensors, prediction and physics.

Fabbers:

galactic slang for fabricators. Fabbers are an ubiquitous part of life both through the Alliance colonies and the Citadel systems. Using raw material often stored in a powder or polymer gel (omni-gel) basic fabbers can manufacture simple objects out of supplied materials such as plastics, metals or light ceramics. More advanced fabbers are capable of manufacturing larger scales and at finer tolerances. Modern shipyards use immense fabbers and are able to create ship components whole cloth for installation almost instantly while still being able to create the delicate electronics linking ship systems together. (omnitool fabber super-sized. Can print an entire ship. The raw materials and product licenses are expensive though.)

Omni/neural interface:

As with fabbers, omni-neural interfaces are a very nearly ubiquitous technology. Considered part of standard equipment for many professions and required by law for members of many modern military and police organizations the omni-neural interface allows a sapient to access any attached equipment wirelessly through thought alone. While most omnitools allow physical interface with the haptic display, all are manufactured with a secure quantum encrypted interface chip designed to interface directly with an owners via their neural port. In the early stages of the technology it was considered dangerous the unique mapping of each individuals brain and resultant configuration of the omnitools make information attacks virtually impossible. Developed separately by both the Sol races and the Citadel neural interfaces are usually implanted early in a child's development in order to accustom them to the extra senses omnitools can provide and to allow them to interact with their peers through the use of wireless technology. While vocal communication is still considered the norm this technology provides instant caption and translation of all interstellar languages, effectively eliminating the language barrier between populations.

Active Camoflage:

A Miracle of modern science active camouflage is achieved through the union of advanced materials, fabrication, kinetic manipulation and computing algorithms allow someone so equipped to become nearly invisible. To activate active camouflage sheets of light refracting metamaterieals or created from a specialized omnigel from local fabbers. Local shielding technology then arranges these metamaterieals into a cloak around the subject while advanced computing algorithms manage the angles and probable observers. The end result is what is very nearly invisibility. The metamaterieals can be easily torn or damaged by hostile fire or even unfortunate weather. More durable variants can be created by weaving the materials directly into a soldier's armor providing a secondary layer of protective refraction. As active camouflage does not block heat emissions or gravitic/eezo disturbances and visual sensors are almost completely useless in a space environment use in starships is extremely rare and reserved almost exclusively for special operations landing ships.

Auxiliary Ablative Armor:(tech armor)

A technique pioneered at shortly after second contact and used at all scales of combat auxillary ablative armor is a method of providing a secondary layer of hybrid shield/armor. Often stored when not in use as a sheets thin reinforced ceramic lying ontop of more traditional armor or deployed by integrated fabbers. Ablative armor is sheets of thin nearly transparent reinforced ceramic held suspended at distance away by modulated kinetic barrier emmitters from a soldiers hardsuit. This provides a substantial layer of protection against very nearly all threats a soldier may face while in the field. The thin plates diffract directed energy attacks and fragment most kinetic slugs, spreading the force of the impact a over a large segment of the armor and reducing penetration astoundingly. When damaged a replacement sheet is immediately placed under construction in slaved fabbers and the old sheet is retired. Should the soldier chose so the arrangement of plates can be repelled at incredible velocity or disintegrated in a cloud of opaque glowing dust, providing either a smoke or fragmentation effect. These forms of shields are commonly used in ship to ship combat with many vessels having multiple layers of armor often bearing large amounts of heavy metals able to deflect and diffuse directed radiation weapons in addition to serving as chaff and point defense.

N Infiltrators:

N infiltrators are a specialist variant of N grade special forces trained primarily in stealth and espionage. While it is not unknown for an Infiltrator to have and make use of biotic/psychic abilities in combat their strengths are long range assassination and electronic assaults against enemy networks. The calling card of the infiltrators is their open conflict doctrine best summed up as the two maxims 1. If it ain't bolted down take it 2. Bring bolt cutters. A technique expedited through the use of Sylladex technology.


	3. Chapter 2: Prospit

Chapter 2: Medium

'Rogue of Life, Welcome to Prospit.'

**Flip the fuck out.**

The rogue springs out of the bed and makes for the window. The White Queen stands calmly at the side of the room while Jane almost falls out the window. 'What? Who are you? Whats going on?' she gasps as she looks around at the room, a replica of her room as a child in the slums of London her old omni-tool or a replica sat on the bedside table, the old boyband posters covered the walls hiding her secret stash, her small shrine to the Void was located behind a hidden panel only visible to those who knew what to look for. An explosion lit up the cloud outside the window as WQ began to speak. 'Rogue you are in your room on Prospit this is the Medium. I am the White Queen and it appears that you are dead.'

The sentence hung in the air heavily. 'We have been expecting you for some time. A visitor has requested an audience with you in your drawing room.' with that the queen Gathers herself and leaves the room. 'If you would follow me.'

**Follow the crazy carapace.**

Jane still bewildered beyond reason quickly palms her omnitool, the target rifle she kept under her bed at that age while muttering a quick prayer to the void before following the crazy carapacian. Down a flight of stairs and onto a golden transportalyser Jane felt a familiar jolt as she was suddenly somewhere else. The queen lead her down a corridor unclad feet silent against the heavy crimson carpet. The queen was unlike any carapacian Jane had seen before. Like all Prospitans she had an alabaster carapace and eyes as dark as a black hole but unlike the many carapacians that Jane had met in her lifetime she carried herself with a regal grace, her shell segmented in places unusual for carapacians, providing the queen with a nearly human figure, extra flexibility, a graceful gait and an air of power and nobility. The Queen came to a stop outside an unassuming door. She turned to Jane, 'Your guest is in here should you need anything just call and an attendant should be along shortly. It is an honour to meet you.'

As the Queen began to leave the Rogue caught herself 'Thank you your majesty.' she said bowing a little.

The Queen gave a polite nod and left. Jane standing in front of the door slowly opened it and stepped in. Before her was a golden room like everything else in the tower with two high backed red chairs facing the window, feet in blue slippers dangled from below the one on the right as the clack of knittng needles could be heard in the still silence. In the clouds obsolete starships were consumed in flashes of green light as the cloud moved past the field of view. 'Jane, thank you for meeting me so quickly after your death. It is not an easy experience I know.' the speaker places her jagged knitting needles aside and stands turning to face the rogue. The woman was of medium height and slim build, intelligent eyes of light purple appraised the Rogue while her shoulder length blond hair reflected the colors shown in the clouds above. She was wearing a hooded golden orange dress with the emblem of light emblazoned on the front, a thin smile touched her lips and a faint feeling of death and danger surrounded her as it did other great destroyers. 'I should introduce myself, my name is Rose Lalonde, The Seer of Light.'

**flip your shit.**

I'm afraid Jane cannot flip her shit at the moment, she needs to remove her jaw off the floor.

'You and I are here because of a mistake my friends and I made when we relocated the Earth. The universe it was in, Old Earth was slated for Armageddon, then destruction. Sometime in the 25th century a villain of our own creation destroyed the very universe it was in, And while Trolls are capable of replenishing their numbers reasonably quickly given the necessary materials, Humans are not. So we hatched a plan so save our species and planet. Move it to a safe place. We had the power and the will so we created The Shift. As the humans in our own world died from the Armageddon created by the reckoning created in turn by the game, they awoke on the new world in the new universe. In the process we also brought Newternia from its original home, Prospit, Derse and our own planets.' silence reigned for a moment.

**Collect your jaw off the floor, then flip your shit.**

'Bullshit' Jane exclaimed, 'Reckoning? Game? Villain? Armageddon? What are you talking about!?.'

'The game, Sburb the one which disappeared during The Shift. Isn't. Calling it a game is just a way to for it to be distributed and used. It is actually a way for universes to perpetuate their existence. Each time a session is initialed it creates this'. She gestured out the window to the image of a buglike creature being destroyed by a damaged Geth platform in the clouds. The blue orb of Skaia stretched out above them while the golden moon city of Prospit spread out below them from their vantage in the tower, in the far distance a small purple speck glowed against the darkness. 'And writes itself into history such that this has always existed, waiting for the dreamers. Waiting for you. Once it has its players it forces them through a series of hoops in order to create a new universe for them to rule as gods, assuming they make it of course'

**You need a drink**

Jane collapses into the chair on the left flabbergasted by the expositional infodump. 'I need a drink.' she declares with certainty. A small door opens in the wall and a server comes forward with a large pitcher of mushroom wine, pouring her a large goblet and placing the jug on the table beside her before making a quiet departure. The rogue downed the contents of the goblet so fast that sleight of hand was almost involved. For a long moment there was silence. 'You said you made a mistake?'

'The Reapers. We moved the Earth into the best place to ensure the perpetuation of our species but the Reapers evaded our notice until it was too late.'

'Ah, Reapers.' Jane mimicked in a spot on impression of Councilor Valern.

'Both Humanity and the Trolls will survive the reaper invasion regardless of what happens but cloning tanks and suspended animation are an unacceptable outcome. We have taken steps to ensure it will not come to that.' the goddess stopped, sipping tea from golden porcelain with a small smile.

**Steps?**

'What steps?'

'Bringing you here, now. You have always been the greatest chance for the galaxy, Terezi has seen the possible futures, all of them. In every one The Shepard leads the fight against extinction at every turn. Sometimes The Shepard is a man, a woman, a soldier, engineer, vanguard, adept. Details change but every time it is you that fight them and because of You and your choices their cycle may end. Sometimes you loose and so does the galaxy. We... I, am not prepared to let that happen... and so you are here now. You see those clouds.' she gestured to the sky, displaying a young Quarian stripping the datacore out of a stunned Geth platform. 'From this vantage the clouds of skaia act as windows in time.' a ship cruised past another cloud, Normandy class with a tall orange hexagon emblazoned on its flank. 'Each scene you see has already happened or or will already happen, the future though not set in stone has some events may not be changed but if you can see well enough and pay attention the course to the action you desire will be illuminated. These alone would win you victory if you choose to use them.'

For a moment they watched the clouds as a display of Shepard, Wrex, Joker and the Geth from earlier sat around a golden table playing cards, the Geth collecting an immense pile of purple and gold boondollars. 'The intel is nice and it's nice to have someone believe me for once but there's something else you're not telling me.'

A smile touches the goddess' lips. 'Each sburb player has a role and an aspect, for many their assignment is a challenge, it is counter to their nature, their nurture, both or neither. The game as a dark sense of humor, and likes to torment its players. If they accept the role the game gives them, if they act with their class to use their aspect they become closer and closer to what their title describes them to be, gaining the power which comes with it. If they don't their aspect may rebel and act regardless of their intent, or as it did in my case reinterpret both itself and its wielder. This happens wherever you are inside the game or out. You already know most of the players in your session. If you think on it you'll find their titles already beginning to influence them and the world around them.'

'Tali?'

'The Smith of Heart. Though the creation of souls is deeply against her mind.'

'Her machines have always had personality.' Shepard chuckled, amused at the absurdity of it all.

'Sburb offers many other resources to its players just as useful as the clouds but it will be best you and your fellow players to discover them independently of our influence.' Rose got up, walked up the steps to the window, her knitting disappearing into her sylladex. The window in front of her opened and she stepped onto the air outside, 'Before I leave I would like to give you a tour of your home for the time being.'

**Apply reason **

Jane collected herself,feeling the back of her neck, no bio-amp. Walking over to the window reaching out and she wove her arm under the woman in gold's slipper clad feet before looking up at the goddess. 'I can't fly.'

'Can't you?'

The question hung in the air for a moment as Jane stood on the ledge a slight breeze wafting by them.

Time passed, Jane's instincts warring against the word of god. She stepped, her foot found no purchase against the air. Instinctively she found herself trying and failing to get back on the ledge, flailing wildly , weak directionless biotics flaring in an effort to regain her balance. She gave up as her other foot left the grog getting reading for her inevitable fall to the ground below only to find herself floating a foot from the ceiling. Hearing a giggle from outside she turned scowling at the young woman floating outside the window.

'Come, let me show you around.' The woman took off heading for the upper levels of the towers.

**Follow the talky, floaty, knowitall goddess.**

Jane spirits through the window and quickly catches up with the Seer, flying across the prospitan sky towards the great chain. Pulling up to the chain rose comes to a halt. 'You've been here before Jane, back in Sol?'

'Yeah, after the Skyillian blitz I was given shore leave on Prospit with some of the other Elysium survivors.' She snorted as an old memory surfaced ' threw up from the third link. I could see the towers of the gods in the distance and ….' her voice trailed off as she looked outwards, five towers located equidistant around the horizon, the clouds of Skaia telling tales to all who would watch. 'It was different then, there were only four towers... The Carapacians wouldn't let anyone near them, they said they were the properties of the gods.' Jane was silent for a moment. 'Rose, what was in the towers?'

'I cant speak for Prospit. I was a Derse dreamer myself, but in my tower and that of my brother was a replica of our bedrooms on earth, down to the mess on the floor and the cinder-block desk. I believe you will find the equivalents in those towers and their Dersite brethren. You are here awake because the game gives its players a second chance, should a dead or dying player be kissed on the lips their dream self will awaken permanently. It allows mistakes while playing the game and provides sacrifice without sacrifice as it were. However in your case I suspect it will only be temporary.' Rose gestured to a cloud showing Jane fighting Loki mechs alongside a black human. 'You are the Rogue of Life after all.'

With that the Seer turned and made towards Prospit itself, clearing the chain and flying down the central towards the Royal Palace.

**Follow the floaty one**

The royal palace is a majestic building surrounded by extensive courtyards, walks and hangers, enormous Skaiatech battleships were under construction on the ground. These features however paled into the ten immense towers surrounding the palace each stretching tens of kilometers into the sky.

The women floated to a halt above the center of the palace, Prospitans watching them from the ground.

'These towers, they don't exist in Sol, why?'

'An artifact of our session, the Prospit which now inhabits the Sol System, Derse as well, were never host to kernels, something which you will discover in the future. However know that these towers show that yours will be a valid session and its purpose of the game will be served.' the goddess turned to Jane and looked her in the eyes. ' Jane Shepard, when you play the game and win, as you most likely will, I and the rest of my companions would ask you to return to your home instead of claiming your victory, preserve the people you have sworn to serve.'

**Save the Galaxy (again).**

Silence surrounded the two women as the wind curled around the palace. 'I will.'

Rose smiled as Shepard made the decision. 'Thank you, we moved Newternia and our worlds to get them out of the reach of a monster whom even the Guardians pale against, now I must return to confront him with the others. It is good to know that our people are in good hands.'

With that the Goddess hugged the Rogue and rose up into the air equal to the tops of the towers.

'You may want to step back.' She warned as a small marble of element zero appeared from her sylladex and her knitting needles appeared in her hand. With a wave of the needles energy crackled around the eezo, Shepard felt a field similar to a mass relay form around Rose the air felt strained, temperature fell and rose as the mass effect compressed and released the atmosphere and a column of blue light formed in the atmosphere, reaching upwards through the shy and through the medium. Cherenkov radiation formed by the reality defying field as a bright green light flooded the palace and towers from the other end of the immense null-mass field. In a crack of lightening she was gone, the energy field slowly collapsing in a rainbow of colors, energy enough to scour life from a planet's surface dissipating harmlessly. The marble, the energy powering it gone,spun for a moment, crackling in the remnants of divine power before falling towards the palace, Jane swept in to catch it only to find it cold to the touch, the Sigil of Light glowing from deep inside its surface.

* * *

Codex:

Rose Lalonde, Seer of Light

Supreme tactician of the Gods. The Seer of Light while regarded primarily as a mythological figure by the citadel races is an accomplished author and philosopher and has written he bestselling series, the Complacency of the Learned and has written papers which ave contributed significantly to scholarship on human and Troll therapy as well as prediction theory and advanced optics. As a deity she is credited with the ability to scry the most appropriate path to maximze the chances of accomplishing her chosen outcome. Other abilities are vision of all known electromagnetic wavelengths*, manipulation of 'majjik ennerjies' and extreme powers of exposition, perhaps the most potent of all of the light gods. She is considered the patron deity of the Alliance intelligence services along with the Seer of Mind and patron of the skaian education system predominantly the Seer of Light Institute of Psychiatry.

The Council considers her threat level on par with that of a supported dreadnought group. The Alliance, insulted, registered a protest demanding it be raised.

*denotes science pun


	4. Codex: the Shift

Codex:

**The Shift:**

On the 13th of April 2009 coinciding with the release of the Sburb Beta the Sol system was enveloped in a burst of electromagnetic energy focused in the 510-540nm and 10-7-10-6m ranges, bright green and high energy gamma light, now colloquially known as Green energy and matched to the energy the Skaian Guardians utilize when necessary. On that day the entirety of the human race dreamed of Armageddon.

Anecdotal and personal records of the day reveal that humanities collective hallucination, Shared by person to person across the world is remarkably consistent, this and the physical changes to the Sol System and surrounds have driven much theological and scientific debate into the nature of The Shift.

The day was considered normal until the first copies of the Sburb beta were installed in a wave across the planet. With the installations asteroids were detected in high orbit and around the earths gravity well throughout the day. Much of the historical record after the first meteor strikes is focused upon personal accounts of survival and eventual death but notable discrepancies from known phenomena are the functional effect Sburb had on the homes of its players and the link between the timer on the 'Cruxtruder' created via the game and the eventual asteroid impact at that site.

During the apparent destruction of Earth each person reports in the final moments before awakening that they had died in the dream. Over the course of the day people awoke from the nightmare consuming what is now known as Old Earth primarily reporting their demise from impact derived phenomena. At precisely 10AM GMT those remaining sleepers who would wake, did, reporting a wave of green energy engulfing the planet. Of the some 12million people who did not wake from the slumber (now dubbed the Dreamers) it has been confirmed that approximately 70% were players of the Sburb beta while the remainder where close friends or family members.

Upon awakening the human race found itself on their planet in a reshaped system The Shift, as it quickly become known, had moved the Sol system to a new location.

After The Shift all recordings, components and information pertaining to the creation of Sburb were gone, the ancient temples were removed, unsold discs disappeared, notes erased and memories wiped further implicating its involvement in The Shift.

The greatest change internal to the Sol system after the shift was the existence of both a second planet (dubbed Newternia by its inhabitants) and a planetary cluster of approximately earth mass (The Skaian Cluster) in an equilateral orbit with earth around Sol. These planets provided humanity first contact.

FTL studies by council species reveal that before the shift the sol system for all intents an purposes did not exist. Despite being close to the estimated location of a mass relay, radiation spectra from Sol had neither been detected nor did it match any galactic or extragalactic star cataloged. After The Shift the system was simply there. This burst of Green Energy and subsequent appearance of the Sol system was subsequently detected by a Salarian scout fleet some 90LY away , directly resulted in humanity's second contact.

**Newternia**

Newternia, the Earth mass planet introduced to the Sol during the shift and home to the Troll race. Claimed by its inhabitants to be a recreation of the original home of their species Beforeus created by the 'Pantheon of 36' to act as a new home to the Troll race. Newternia is a grey world with a single pink moon similar to Luna.

The planet is lightly inhabited and covered in a variety of near sapient fauna which act symboioticly with the troll race. The biology of the planet is highly unusual showing evidence of being tampered with extensively. The oldest of the Trolls, Emperor Peixes, claims that the Pantheon simply duplicated the ecosystems of Beforus and that any tampering was from before their time.

The geology of the planet is stable and geological evidence suggests that the planet has existed for some 6 billion years, the technological development of Troll society relative to their population at the time of first contact, some 1.5 million, suggests massive depopulation at some point in time. Newternian industry is dominated by advanced robotics, biotechnology and cybernetics used largely to settle more of their world enhance the survival rate of their minimal population. Newternian longevity gene therapy developed in response to the discrepency, in lifespan between Troll castes, has been modified for use in both Humans and Salarians. The Taurian Hierarchy is devoting substantial resources to a dextro-compatible variant.

**Trolls:**

the Trolls, the natives of Newternia, are the most bizarre sapient species in council space. The average mature troll is a grey skinned humanoid of similar build and height of a human in the same point of their lifecycle, each troll bears a pair of unique red/orange horns on their head and eyes the color of their blood. Trolls, unlike other sapient species are biologically caste based, their place in the cast hierarchy dependent on their blood color. Troll blood color ranges from a dark rust red through orange, yellow, green, blue, violet to tyrian purple. As a trolls blood color warms their lifespan extends and their physical strength and durability increases as does their resistance to psionics with the reigning Emperor Pixes with tyrian blood being virtually immortal. Trolls of cooler color blood however have increased incidence of potent psionic and telekinetic abilities, at the cost of lifespan. Before Longevity Gene therapy a Rust or orange blooded troll could expect to die of old age by 45, since the introduction of the therapy their aging has slowed to be approximately par with an unaltered Jade blooded troll (250yrs).

**The Skaian cluster:**

Of the changes wrought by the shift the Skaian cluster is easily the strangest. A group of ten planetoids and two moons which combined have approximately earth mass. Each planet exists in defiance of the known physical laws of the universe and contains artifacts beyond comprehension. Collectively each of the outer worlds orbit a scant 200000km from the cluster center of mass while Prospit and Derse each orbit 100000km from the center of mass.

**The Outer Planets**

There are eight outer planets in the Skaian cluster each of which is inhabited by one of four species of near sapient reptile. The surface of each planet is distinct and bizzare seemingly contradicting the laws of physics but matching the name of the planets.

Each planet is ruled by a Denizen, a large seemingly supernatural, fully sapient creature of immense power who acts as both a guardian for the planet and its inhabitants. Access to each of the outer planets is restricted at the request of it's Denizen and enforced by the Skaian Guardians, each of the denizens has different entry conditions many of which are often bizarrely difficult to match. however they may, on occasion, invite selected individuals and groups for no apparent reason. At any given time there are between three and four research teams from prominent universities investigating sites of interest on each of the planets.

Of most significance to research is the specific mythology of each planet. Scattered across each of the worlds are temples and ruins referring to tasks and challenges of one of the Eight Gods, the human members of the Pantheon of 36.

The eight planets are, in clockwise order:

The Land of Wind and Shade, LOWAS, Typheus, The Heir of Breath

The Land of Crypts and Helium, LOCAH, Hemera, The Maid of Life

The Land of Light and Rain, LORAR, Cetus, The Seer of Light

The Land of T and K, LOTAK, Nix, The Rogue of Void

The Land of Heat and Clockwork, LOHAK, Hephaestus, The Knight of Time

The Land of P and N, LOPAN, Yaldabaoth, The Prince of Heart

The Land of Frost and Frogs, LOFAF, Echidna, The Witch of Life

The Land of M and X, LOMAX, Abraxas, The Page of Hope

**Prospit and Derse:**

Prospit and Derse are the twin planets of light and darkness, home to the Carapacian Race and the Skaian Guardians, the two most dangerous entities in known space.

Members of the systems alliance Prospit and Derse each resemble enormous renaissance cities floating in the depths of space each of the planets has a moon attached to the planet itself by a giant chain. Calculations put the strength of the chains at well over the maximum theoretical tensile strength for matter. The moons themselves resemble smaller copies of their respective planets save for the Towers of the Heroes, each immense tower containing a single room at the top, rumored to be the abode of the gods dreaming selves when they were mortal. Each of the moons have four towers each corresponding to one of the gods claimed by the inhabitants of the planets. Prospit claims The Heir, The Maid, The Witch and The Page while Derse claims The Seer, The Rogue, the Knight and The Prince.

The Carapacians, are completely sapient and quite intelligent humanoids with a tough armored exoskeleton of a material similar to carbon fiber in strength and flexibility. Whom like their planets are superficially opposite but virtually identical, the Prospitans have an ivory exoskeleton with black eyes while the Dersites a black exoskeleton with white eyes, the children of mixed marriages inherit their coloration from only a single parent. As with all native Skaian peoples the Carapacians do not age once they reach maturity. the primary farming industry of the planet is the growth of farmed fungi in the lower caverns of their completely urbanized planets under the energy of fusion reactors. Economically Prospit and Derse are nearly closed systems subsisting almost entirely on Skaiatech developments to provide for its people. A thriving export market of advanced skaiatech devices with basic mass effect functionality provides a high quality of living and revenue enough to supply extensive colonization efforts throughout alliance space. At the time of first contact Each planet had a population of over 3 Billion souls.

Both planets once had a thriving military and posses medium range personal and platform mounted directed energy weapons which have proven quite popular despite their inferior destructive power and shot velocity for their ability to completely bypass kinetic barriers. The large carapacian navies, mothballed since the end of the Skain War have since largely been sold to various legitimate parties or retrofitted with mass-effect technologies to form the bulk of the new alliance navy. During this process the Quarian Migrant Fleet acquired vast numbers of ships, trading the expertise of their engineers and their prodigious cargo and refining capacity to the alliance for skaiatech and the extra living space the mothballed warships represented.


	5. Chapter 3: Freedoms Progress

Chapter 3:

Shepard stands on the communications pad, cameras in the corners of the rooms scanned her as holographic virtual reality kicked in displaying the Illusive man. TIM sits in the center of large office, it stretched dozens of meters in every direction. Facing the window large enough to be a shuttle docking portal, a star bubbling in the background, its visual signature distorted, thin wisp of smoke rises into the air. The man in front of her smokes a cigarette in his modern black suit. Thin, of medium build the man moves with a effortless grace, smooth, precise, efficient. In front of him a series of haptic panels hover in the air, physical affectation of his own neural link. His eyes are like nothing Jane has ever seen, thin blue rings shift along his irises, faint electric light bleeding out into the office, shifting slightly every moment as near invisible mechanisms moved within his body.

'Commander Shepard'

'TIM. A face to an acronym. Secure communications set up. Quantum link?'

'Old but effective, a necessary precaution for people like us. I suppose you want to know why you're back?'

'It had crossed my mind. An expensive undertaking, or so I'm told.'

'The defense and preservation of humanity doesn't come cheap, but humanity is up against the greatest threat to our short existence and we can't rely on the "Gods" to help us.'

'The Reapers.'

'Excellent, your memory is still intact, how are you feeling?'

'The cybernetics are functioning well and nothing is gone that I'll particularly miss.'

'Good. We need the hero of the citadel, as she was on that day. We took great care to make sure it would be you that returned and not a depressive ghost. As for while your back, while you've been sleeping entire colonies have been dissapearing. It doesn't match any legends or tales of the gods nor does it match the MO of any of the citadel races. We, I, believe another agent of the reapers is responsible, similar Saren or the Geth. Here are all of the details we have gathered thus for, we dont know who or what this agent is but they are powerful enough to make off with entire colonies with no alarms or signs of struggle. When it comes to the reapers you've bested them all, you don't just know but understand what we're up against and you are the best chance humanity has of defeating this threat. The most recent colony hit was freedom's progress, there is a shuttle waiting to take you. I recommend that you take Jacob and Miranda, you'll find they are quite capable at dealing with anything you're likely to find.'

Moments passed as Shepard accessed all extranet activity from Freedoms Progress, it had been silent for almost a day.

'I'll investigate the colony and then we'll see about the Reapers.' Jane signed off from her end. As the cameras and projectors shut down, sliding quietly into their housings, TIM silently begins to go through the security logs, those systems should be impenetrable.

Shepard made for the armory calling Jacob and Miranda. 'Freedoms Progress went dark 18 hours ago, TIM wants us to go check it out. What do we know?'

Miranda responds. 'Freedoms progress is a new colony, humans and carapacians mostly, population 15000, all mid to low echeladder, some troll blue bloods and seadwellers are there scouting for viable locations for a mother grub and hatchery but they're dispersed around the planet, they may not even know the colony has been hit.'

Jacob already in the armory loading his weapons, a heavy pistol, assault rifle and a shotgun into his _assualtkind_ specibus. 'The colony is mostly civilian but has a small military garrison, militia and raid shelters to deal with any slaver runs, of the known citizens there are no special talents, biotic or psionic. They also recently purchased licenses for 350 Loki and 20 Ymir class mechs' The man loaded a belt of heat sinks into his sylladex and grabbed some EM grenades for good measure.

Miranda walked in collecting her own batch of heat sinks. 'The colony is relatively recent, only 5 years old, expect light infrastructure, mainly residential and light industrial. Prefabricated buildings should still be prevalent and won't provide much in the way of cover. The colony is centrally located and contains minimal skaiatech, less than a dozen fenestrated panes but several hundred transportalysers, all of the outlying centers went dark almost simultaneously. ' She finished double checking her pistols before returning them to her d_ual__kind_ specibus. Shepard having already filled her_Hedsplosionkind_specibus with a pair of Phalanx heavy pistols an Eviscerator shotgun and one each of both Mantis and Viper sniper rifles.

* * *

The shuttle dropped inside the orbit Freedoms Progres's moon just as Shepard was finishing an amusing anecdote about Tali, Wrex, Liara and a drum of Prospitan ale.'..the damn thing explodes showering them in ale. You shouldn't mix biotics with artificial gravity.'

Silence filled the ship.

'You had to be there.'

The Spectre accessed the ships sensors via her omni-interface 'We're closing in on the spaceport I'm detecting no active communications within the operational area. There is electrical activity consistent with mechs, mainly Loki class.'

The shuttle landed on a pad outside the colony proper and the three moved out, quickly and quietly Jacob and Miranda moved from cover to cover while Shepard flitted between the shadows, abusing her tactical cloak.

The colony center was silent, open doors swung in the snowy dusk while lesser Newernian fauna hid from the soldiers. It was a ghost town, no signs of fighting, no knocked over furniture, even the vidscreens were still on. It was as if everyone had just disappeared.

Rounding a corner through the light snow Shepard read the comm chatter from a small squad of Loki class mechs patrolling a street, signaling to her squad mates they prepared an ambush. '15 mech and five airbourne drones ahead, reading hostile chatter. Miranda use overload burst grenades, Jacob suppress the flyers. On ,my mark.'

Jane dissapeared into the shadows, her skin turning transparent and her armor masking her heat signature.

StolenShadow started commanding ReconTeam

SS: Mark.

StolenShadow ceased commanding ReconTeam

Miranda propelled her grenades with a biotic push, they landed in between the group of mechs, exploding before the simple machines could respond. Jacob opened up with his Rifle, disruptor rounds interrupting the flight systems of the aerial drones tracing them as they stuttered through the air unable to bring their guns to bear. The instant the grenades initiated Shepard methodically went to work with her knife. Silently assassinating the distracted robots and weaving through the friendly fire expertly. Targeting each bot in the neck joint she neatly removed the head without triggering the distinctive self destruct sequence, stowing the remains invisibly inside her sylladex. The fight came to a quick close as Miranda and Jacob finished the last of the flyers.

Miranda picked through the wreckage, restocking her thermal clips.'That was unexpected, all security systems were inactive at the other sites. We may have a survivor.'

'and hopefully answers.' replies Jacob stoically.

Movement caught Jane's eye causing her to quickly bring her rifle to bear on a small shape floating high above the snow. 'We've got company, it's a Quarian design, scout drone. We need to keep moving, the owner of that thing may not be friendly.' The trio moved quickly disappearing into the snow covered streets.

* * *

A young woman stands in a bedroom, due to a mysterious circumstances the inhabitants of the room and the house, and the town are nowhere to be found. She is here to find an old friend who was here to help the humans, he may well be gone. Regardless she WILL find out what happened to him and she WILL do what is Necessary to get the kid home or her name isn't Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. That's her name and anyone who thinks differently has another thing coming.

As previously mentioned she is on an excursion to rescue a friend, to accomplish her task she has a squad of Particularly Ornery Marines and a ridiculous surplus of fire power to see the job done. She has a variety of interests. Building sophisticated Combat Drones whom she pits against Murderous Robots in fights to the death. Her other interests includes gardening, growing orange gourds in the great hydroponics rooms of the Rayya. They always seem to disappear when she isn't looking. Her other interests include classical music, walks along the beaches on Rannoch and ACTION SCIENCE in which she participates in with typical results.

http tinyurl com backslash **ACTION-SCIENCE** (typical results, visual gag)

She is currently disturbed because she saw a dead woman through her scout drone, she was heading this way. 'Unidentified contact approaching the north door, everyone move to cover. Let me handle this.'

The woman activated her strife specibus DRONEKIND deploying two mouse class drones and instructing them to cover the north door.

* * *

Shepard moved to the door, apart from a few squads of Mechs the trip had been uneventful and even they were barely worth mentioning. The Spectre paled as the door slid open revealing the pair of mice. The mouse class drone developed by Tali'Zorah during the Geth war stands at an impressive 212 centimeters tall crafted from the finest 'redistributed' small arms and unwanted armour, each drone is an immense behemoth of slaved hardsuit computers, omnitools and layered shielding systems constructed around the impressive core structure of a Ymir heavy mech. As armament each drone bears weapons a set of four heavy mass drivers, 6 assault drivers and a number of small point defense turrets cannibalized from heavy pistols and SMGs. Each of the machines regarded Shepard impassively through polarized faceplates as tigerstripe cooling strips powered up, illuminating the torsos of the machines layered with cannibalized Armour.

'Ummm, Chiktikka, Boo, you haven't seen Tali around anywhere have you?' Shepard asked nervously as The machines ablative plating shuddered sounding like the growl of some immense animal. For a moment no one moved.

'Shepard, is that really you?'

'Remember that day with you, Liara, Wrex and the Prospitan ale?'

Tali hung her head for a moment,snorting in laughter at the old memory 'Uggh, it took me nearly a week to get the stains out of my suit. How can a legal beverage stain so much?'

'Your guess is as good as mine. Do you have any idea what happened to the colonists, the place seems a little dead?'

'Aren't you meant to be a little dead. I saw you spaced, you stopped moving and then...' she fell silent staring at the woman standing before her.

'I'm back, hired for a mission. Paid in advance as it were. Cerberus believes that the Reapers or one of their agents is behind the abduction of the colonists, I've been reassembled to deal with the problem.'

'Reassembled?'

'Here are the details, if you can go over the more esoteric techniques you should find them quite enlightening.'

Talis eyes glazed over behind her suit as she quickly browsed the files received from the Spectre. Time passing slowly as she found herself drawn into the details.

'Tali Why are you here. The colonists?'

Snapping back to reality.

'No, we're here to search for a missing Quarian, Veetor, he was on his pilgrimage here once the colony went dark our monitors threw an alarm. We're here to extract him if possible and recover any information on what did this. The drones spotted him earlier from the air but he's gone to ground.' Tali stopped to sound the all clear the mice lowered their numerous weapons and blinked back inside the strife deck and Quarian marines emerged from every corner, some using active camouflage, appeared out of thin air, all told there were 14 marines in addition to Tali hiding in the room. A male wearing officer's rank insignia stepped forward. 'Tali, I don't like this, trusting Cerberus. You know what they've done?'

'I know precisely what they've done Praza and it isn't Cerberus I'm trusting its Sheppard.' the woman stopped for a moment.

'Commander can we trust your friends here?'

'They've proven themselves capable and are in this for the long haul,' Sheppard sent Tali a copy of their dossiers 'They'll follow my lead.'

'I can work with that. Veetor seems to have gone to ground in one of the raid bunkers on the far side of the colony, but there is a large mech contingent standing guard, at least 10 Ymir with Flyers and Loki support we need to bring all of our firepower to bear on them to be able to do this with minimal casualties. Shepard can you flank them from the south and show them why they need to watch their backs.'

'With pleasure, just like old times.'

'Not quite, Boo and Chiktikka are far nastier than last time and I've a few more tricks up my sleeve. Meet you there.'

The marines quickly filed through the southern doors while Shepard headed east with her team. They moved quickly neutralizing small squads of mechs before they neared their final objective. The squad moved quickly and quietly to a vantage point overlooking the target position.

Swathed in deep snow, the field around the shelter was silent. Small concrete blocks provided cover around the area which would prove useless against the heavy weaponry of the assualt mechs occupying the field. All told there were almost 15 Ymir class mechs in the field, powered down and hiding among the snow covered masonry. Active and disguiding the heavier robots by their mere presence was a collective of nearly fifty Loki patrolling a path through the heavy snow and twenty five of their smaller airbourne cousins floating silently through the air.

'Tali we're in position, status?'

'We're taking up positions in the north and are ready to deploy on your mark.'

Shepard pulled her Viper out if it's strife deck, passing it to Miranda. 'Once the assault starts keep the fliers and any Fenris off the Quarians, watch your fire, Jacob keep the Loki busy the Quarians will cover you.' Shepard activates her cloak and falls to the ground quickly taking cover against the Quarian positions in the north while prepping her omnitool to nullify any enemy shields it comes against.

SalvagedMechanic began advising ReconTeam

SM: Mark on five, one, two, three'

SM: one.

SM: two.

SM: three.

SM: four.

SM: Mark.

SalvagedMechanic ceased advising ReconTeam

A roar from the mice erupted from the far side of the far side of the snow covered field. armor plates shaken together stirred the pristine snow to the north as the mice advanced. Each mouse, a monster of destruction, weapons coming online and overlapping shields distorting stomped through the snow towards Shepard's position Tiger stripes glowing a rich red as the machines warmed up. Targeting the opposing Ymir mechs the heavy mass drivers opened up, a rapid stream of anti-materiel fire pounded against the shields of a single enemy at a time salvaged sniper rifles leaving bright blue plasma trails in the air. at the same time their rapid fire assault drivers drowned dozens of Loki in a tide of precisely targeted assault fire tearing the air around the hapless machines into a blue storm and the machines themselves into little more than dust on the wind. Their point defense cannons loaded with EM disruptor rounds barking short bursts of fire destabilizing any flyers for long enough for the marines on the ground to stun them with overload and sabotage mines.

The shields on the first Ymir fell and Shepard sprung into action, closing quickly she carved off the rear armor panel with her omni-blade reached in and stole the main processor core, quickly dropping to the ground as the next Ymir's shields sparked out. One after another the Ymir fell to the combined efforts of the mouse army and the Rogue. The plentiful Loki mechs did not even last that long, unable to properly focus fire against the assaulting drones through a storm of assault weapon, sniper fire and dozens of tech grenades flung by the hidden marines. Their fate was sealed when Jacob broke cover, charging the greatest concentration of machines, quickly followed by a small team of Quarian Vanguards careening into smaller teams of robots tearing them apart with shotguns and grenades. Miranda worked the viper like a professional a constant stream of armor piercing rounds tearing through the air, impacting any machine which seemed to even get the slightest drop on the combatants in the field below, her Quarian counterparts acting in like using armor telemetry from their allies to pinpoint their victims. In a shockingly short time combat drones systematically demolished all resistance, aided by their mortal masters before retreating and blinking out as they returned to their master's strife deck.

Tali approached the silent husk of the nearest Ymir mech quietly chuckling as Shepard appeared, deactivating her cloak, sitting on top of the once threatening machine. 'Just like old times, hey Shepard'

'Just like old times', Shepard said extracting the processor cores from a pocket and passing them to Tali.

'You've gotten sneakier.'

'You've brought even more fire power than I thought possible. If we had your army on the citadel the whole thing would have been over in moments. Lets go and get Veetor.'

The door to the raid bunker opened with a bit of biotic encouragement punctuated by mouse fire. Entering the bunker they moved out eventually coming to a single small defense room, vidscreens plastered the walls and a slight male Quarian in his suit worked a pair of keyboards muttering to himself about swarms and seekers. Panic in his voice Veetor didn't notice the small army stomping in behind him.

'Veetor, we're here, you're safe now.' Tali had moved up behind the terrified man. He turned, 'What, they didn't find you. Tali, why are you here, the monsters are coming back. They didn't find Veetor but the swarmers are coming back, the mechs will protect.

'Veetor, Please Listen to me, we are here to take you home, the monsters can't hurt you now. This is Shepard, remember the stories of Shepard? Tell her what happened.'

Veetor stopped looking at the humans. 'Humans? You hid how did you hide, they found everyone, the seekers, they found everyone, they stung them, froze them, how did you hide.'

'We came later, Veetor what happened here, where is everyone'

'The monsters came, Their ship landed and the seekers flew and found everyone, no one could hide. I was lucky, they didn't see me so I locked up. The seekers closed in, they froze whoever they stung and then the monsters arrived and took them away, then the monsters flew away on their ship. But they will come back, Tali here now, Tali will protect.' on the screens security footage played, insectoid aliens seizing limp humans and carapacians, packing them into cryo boxes, swarms of giant insects flew past the cameras.

'They look like collectors, same shape, similar look. What are they doing this for?' Miranda wondered aloud.

'Veetor do you have any more video of the monsters?'

'Yes, yes, I studied them, all readings, dark matter, electromagnetic, psionic, patrols. Veetor study them all. I Recorded them on omnitool, not get caught like friends, keep them safe.'

'Veetor, can I have a copy of the data. I need it to hunt the monsters.'

'No no no no, don't hunt the monsters, they will find you they will take you.'

'Veetor this is Shepard, remember the stories I told you. The monsters, they hide from Shepard.'

'I, I, the monsters took my friends, please find them.' With that Veetor opened up his omnitool and Shepard downloaded the information they needed.

'Thank you Veetor'

'Tali, we have what we need, we couldn't have done this without your help. You should get Veetor home.'

'Miranda, Jacob lets head back.'

* * *

Codex: Mouse Mechs

Originally conceived and built by Tali'zorah on the eve of the Battle of the Citadel, mouse class mechs are a amalgamation of multiple independent components linked into a single combat unit through the use of close range mass effect fields and short wave high frequency communications. Each mech consists of an arrangement of modular armour and weapon components arranged using mass effect fields and magnetics onto an endeoskeletal frame for mechanical support. Each of the components is typically fitted with an EM/mass effect field manipulator, a small processor and a microfusion generator and bound together by a single command code allowing the various modular components to act in a network as one. Most mice are based on a Loki or Fenris frame and have lesser components created from cannibalized armor and weapons making them popular among Technical specialists. The largest advantage of the mouse design is its versatility, the difference between a robobutler and a light combat mech is small box full of modular components which can quickly form both modular ablative shields, armor and independent weapons systems.

Codex: Microfusion

The primary and ubiquitous method of power generation in ezzo dependant galactic society. Microfusion generators operate by using mass increasing fields to decelerate and condense extremely small volumes of deuterium (hydrogen with a single neutron) into a high density plasma. Once the plasma reaches reaction temperature it ignites in neucular fire, fusing the deuterium atoms into helium which is then extracted from the reactor. Neither the reaction fuel or exhaust is radioactive and reactors in common use use such small amounts of fuel at a time that should overload occur the worst case scenario is the runaway reaction melts the casing and control circuitry, shutting down the mass effect field and halting any further reactions. With the introduction of skaiatech based macrofusion reactors commonly used by Sol colonies before second contact the size, efficiency and cost of commercial and military reactors has improved markedly in the last century. Microfusion reactors are present in almost all modern technology, omnitools, weapons, datapads etc, their power density, fuel use, convienience and safety far outweighs that of any competing technology.

Codex: Echeladder

The Echeladder is one of the distinct characteristics of fully sapient species alongside the ability to use strife decks and sylladex technology. A sapient climbs their own individual echaledder by achieving challenges, reaching milestones, making hard decisions and generally living life to the best of their ability. Each rung climbed provides a person with a small boost to their innate abilities. Reaching the top of a personal echeladder is a rare event a very few achieve within their lifetime but the rewards which come with it are awe inspiring. Before first contact high echeladder humans were known to be able to flash step with incredible speed, tear safes from walls, and seemingly dissapear from plain sight for hours at a time. All races have legends of high level individuals achieving astounding feats. Krogan strength and endurance built cities, Salarian precision and speed allowed microfabrication in the industrial age and the Asari discovered the citadel almost solely through the use of FTL biotics.

* * *

AN

Orwellian Edit. throwing details about the echeladder for those who haven't read homestuck and making it clear that the trolls aren't a physically superior race to any of the ME races (humans included) they just have a wider variety of abilities.

More orwellian edits.

Also because of the echeladder an individual sapient, even a relatively low echeladder is more than a match for a Loki or even a small squad of loki. Professional mid range soldiers are, by the standards of things like Avatar highly skilled and dangerous. High echeladder sapients can outright defy the laws of physics and are absurdly dangerous in their chosen field. Technology does not have this luxury, Geth are dangerous because in a collective sense they are sapient but basic assault bots are really nothing more than cannon fodder.

AN: i thought the design of ME heavy mechs was really a bit silly. The power of their assault cannons is ridiculous but they still have to have the weapon wait to cool down when they could swap out internal heat sinks like everyone else? And they are equipped with chemically powered missile launchers when a sniper rifle can generate well over triple the destructive yield. Mouse mechs are my response to this question, tiger stripe cooling systems, distributed components with no vital weak spots, point defenses, ablative armor and enough DAKKA to make a warboss think twice before taking them on.


	6. chapter 4: Blanc and Noir

Chapter 4: Blanc and Noir.

Be the arcagent.

In the cubicle of vigilance the arcagent snarled. This was not an uncommon occurrence the arcagent as the one before him and the one before him spent a lot of time snarling, but this time it was different. One of the dreamers had awoken.

His notes told him about her. Jane Shepard, Rogue of Life, rampant kleptomaniac, he'd have to keep a good eye on his stuff. He knew this day was coming of course. He also knew that this was one of the most unusual awakenings of all instances, right there in the .0001th percentile, not only had she awoken at death, not in itself an uncommon occurrence, but she did so before the game was afoot, considerably more unusual. The kicker was that there was someone there waiting for her, a god tier player, 5th level, unimaginably powerful. They met, there was some talking, and she left. The Rogue seemed to know the God Tier, or of her, curious.

Going over his notes the archagent found this happening in a grand total of 0 instances. It appears someone was playing fast and loose with the rules... faster and looser. Damn setup, someone always gets up to shenanigans. Looking at the rogue through the fenestrated wall he decided that the woman had shenanigans written all over her. Rogues, always with the Rogues.

With a snarl he grabbed his radio to his subordinate.

'Where's the dreamer, we best go 'introduce' ourselves.'

'Yes of course I mean the awake one, like were going to see the walker. she's already caused more property damage than our yearly budget.'

'WHAT! She's nice. How did you find that out...'

'…... elaborate for me.'

'Ok, where is she now.'

'She's doing what!'

'Grab your stuff, this is formal like.'

'No, he's busy by the sound of things. Grab the big guy and remember, serious shoes. After what happened last time it's something I'd hope you remember.

Yes, it would have changed things! Now get moving.

The arcagent slumped into his chair with grimace number 5, the incompetent subordinate special. Dammit, you can't find decent help these days, even the guys you were spawned with. With that the arcagent gathered his things grabbing his hat and shillelagh.

John Blanc moved to meet his new...

Obstacle.

Be the rogue

As Prospit spins underneath the glowing orb which is skaia Jane sits at he bar in the dingiest, dirtiest, roughest joint she could find on the skaian moon. Made in such a way as to avoid the omnipresent golden light of Prospit, at night its low ceiling and heavy windows provided quite the shady spot, the horrorterrors of the outer ring observable even from Prospit's inner orbit. But as the moon brushed the outer edge of Skaia blue light sleeted in through the windows while the clouds played scenes of her and her old friends. It seemed almost happy until you paid attention to the clouds. Fighting, killing, stealing, killer robots, genocidal cyborgs, etc.

On second thought Jane could see why this was the roughest place in town. She drained he fifth pint of mushroom ale in her quest to get as spectraly drunk as possible, it wasn't ryncol but it'd do. As she watched her younger self spring through the slums of LA using her innate biotic ability and a stolen bio amp she felt a small tug on the leg of her pants. looking down she saw a small jester looking prospitan. About half the height of a regular prospitan but no less stout he wore a white suit ,similar to the other citizens in the streets, and a truly ridiculous pair of multicolored shoes.

'Nice Shoes.'

The little guy blushes, stutters, asks if you are the rogue.

'Yeah, whats it too you?'

He almost collapses in hysterics, telling how he saw you in the clouds and he watched all your moments he asked what the Heir was like in person and the Sage and how you fought the Killer robots and have you met the Ranger yet and can he have your autograph?

'Yeah, okay, have you got a pen?'

The little guy quickly proffers a vast selection of stationary, there's even an embosser in there. Shepard takes a pen and signs a proffered card. 'So Conrad, tell me about these people, the Heir, the Sage and the Ranger?'

After he picks himself from another paroxysm of hysterics he tells her about the others. How he's never seen them in person and how they're up in their towers, but the clouds show them all the time and if you can get up to their rooms they'll be there sleeping. Shepard looked out at the view of the horizon, two towers stood majestically, each brushing the clouds above them as the moon swept across the outer edge of Skaia. The first tower stood comprised of curved segments of golden plating, symmetrical but somehow putting Shepard in the mind of the carapace of an insect. The second tower in the far distance was all brutalist edges, right-angled corners and fortified concrete stretching into the clouds topped with a heavy concrete box.

'Conrad. Why are the towers all different?'

She turned back to find a second tall carapacian talking sharply to the little guy. 'Stooge get the stuff ready it's almost time. Change your shoes for Skaias sake, you remember last time.'

The tall guy straightens up as Stooge scuttles off into the darkness, He is taller than most carapacians dressed in a sharp suit in the local style the man had cold unfeeling eyes and a satisfied smile which betrayed no humor. Shepard allowed herself a smirk as she quaffed another mug of ale, she had dealt with this type of guy before.

'The Diplomat at your service, my associate and I are here for our daily rehearsal princess and would be honoured...

Shepard snorted into her pint, princess, PRINCESS. The last guy to call her princess came down with a sudden case of concussion and couldn't walk straight for a week. 'Why... did you call me princess?' she replied with a voice as cold as the wastes of Noveria.

'You came from the tower,' the man replied, impressively keeping his cool yet remaining stiff as a plank, 'You are wearing the clothes of a dreamer thus you are one of the princesses of Prospit. As one of her majesty's agents I must maintain protocol.'

Shepard allowed herself to relax, it was just proper, if disturbingly slimy, protocol. A small smirk touched her lips as she turned to the man. 'Ah, my mistake. You can call me princess all you want but first... First, you have to help me sing a song.'

The man's cool cracks at as she slides her arm around his shoulders and holds him in a vice like grip. 'A song?'

'About hedgehogs.'

* * *

…_.if you're willing to swim  
or an OranguTANG if you hang from a limb;  
or make time with a snail if you slow... to... a... crawl...,  
but the hedgehog can... _

John Blanc stepped into the bar flanked by his hulking minion Oligarchical Hench just in time to hear the final words of a song from another universe entirely. The few patrons of the bar laughing at the image of The Diplomat held in an iron grip to the side of the Rogue while she held what appeared to be the latest of enough drinks to knock out the Sage, she looked like she was having the time of her life. The Diplomat on the other hand was almost glowing red underneath his alabaster white carapace. Stooge scuttles up to Blanc's side, wearing sensible shoes for once. He starts telling Blanc about this wonderful song about hedgehogs and llamas and whales and what is a whale? Blank shooes him into place with a snarl as the song finishes up. The woman releases Diplomat who immediately staggers up to the bar to grab himself some of the hard stuff. Perhaps enough of it will erase the last half hour of his life. The rogue collapses into a chair at a nearby table, and notices the mismatched group of agents. 'Watchoo lookin it?'

'at.'

the woman before him giggles for a moment before pulling out some seats and yelling incoherently for a round of pints.

'Conrid, these your frunds?

'Conrad.'

Stooge starts to stutter out an answer before you stop him. 'This,' you gesture to your hulking companion easing slowly onto a chair far too small for him, 'is Oligarchical Hench and this,' you gesture to the little guy with that ridiculous smile on his face still humming the tune under his breath. 'Is Balcony Stooge. I am John Blanc, the Archagent of Prospit. What have you done to my subordinate?'

'The Hedgehig Song. Hedgehog.'

The woman burped happily, fondly regarding when she had pulled the same stunt on (then assistant ambassador) Udina.'Why are you here, Mister Black? Hells, How can I be dead and drink? Drunk, Where is here? Is his first name really The? Why am I here?'

'I'm here to rehearse with my band, you are quite alive, this is the Horrorterror's Psuedopod, Yes and someone cheated. You shouldn't be here, not like this, not this early and that floaty friend of yours shouldn't even have been able to get to this Medium let alone exit the way she did.' The table cracked slightly under the force of the archagent's anger. He calmed himself, slowly letting his rage subside 'Whats worse is that you will awaken again, there are recorded cloud visions of you in the future of the parent universe. This Shouldn't Happen!'

There was a happy noise as Stooge pointed out the window at the image of Shepard fighting large mechanoids in the snow. 'Huh, you think I'd remember fighting robots in the snow?' a behemoth of metal plates and cannibalized weaponry lumbered into view bright orange strips of glowing metal covering its hulking form.

The Rogue sat up straight 'Chikkita!? What has Tali been fooding you?'

'feedink'

'ing'

'Are you even listening to me?'

'She must have swapped out your old chassis for a Ymir.'

'Evidently not. Stooge, grab diplomat we need to get some rehearsal in to show up those Midnight Crew chuckleheads.'

'And she finally got the tiger strippers working.'

'stripes.'

* * *

Within the dark palace on the far side of the Veil within his own cubicle of vigilance sits another arcagent snarling. As with his alabaster double this is not, in the slightest, an uncommon occurence. Unlike his double it is a snarl of bloodthirsty confusion rather than cool calculated malice. Jack Noir sits among towers of disorganized paperwork, finally reading the prospitan paper. A dreamer has awoken, met by a god, the god left, the dreamer found the filthiest watering hole on the whole frog loving moon and proceeded to empty their cellar. But what on Derse was a hedgehog?

Jack turned to one of his fenestrated walls, wound back the time frame and turned up the sound.

For the first time in many, many sessions the Arcagent of Derse smiled a smile which had nothing to do with bloodshed.

* * *

Codex

Fenestrated Wall.

The typical fenestrated wall is a powered window linking any two places at any distance and displaying what is on the far side of the window's opposite number as if it were a normal window. physical objects can pass between windows after defenestration. Use of fenestrated windows is widespread throughout the citadel species where, in addition to their ability to provide a quick and efficient escape route larger models serve as rapid cargo transport units. The transition between paired windows is, as with all skaiatech, the speed of light making them impractical for interstellar transport.

The windows used by the Skaian archagents are one of a kind one way windows and allow rewinding and relocation but not traversal, their Sol counterparts have long been destroyed.


	7. Codex: First Contact

AN: some world building here people, from the shift up to second contact. Less explosions and lascivious deities more economics and religion. Enjoy.

* * *

**Codex:**

**First contact:**

In the Days following The Shift Earth was in panic, Governments panicked, religious leaders preached, pundits blabbered and physicists filed grant applications. It wasn't long before the new celestial objects were noticed, Newternia and the skaian cluster.

First contact with earth was initiated by the a joint expedition of Trolls and Carapacians via UHF television broadcast from a ship in high orbit. A week later a diplomatic delegation landed at the united nations building in New York, USA. With them the diplomats brought, examples of numerous trade goods from advanced Newternian robotics to the bulk skaiatech devices manufactured in Prospit and Derse. By far the most important gift the other species gave the human race is a human optimized variant of troll longevity gene therapy (LGT) allowing its recipients to reach well into their fifth century.

First contact sent massive shocks through the human race, in a single fell swoop the vast majority of global religions found themselves challenged not only by aliens from another planet but aliens who worshiped humans in their pantheon. The Gods and Ancestors have since carved out a significant following among the population of earth, primarily at the cost of established religions. Global trade was dealt a similar blow as rampant speculation on the price of goods in a Post Shift economy drove many investors to madness. Economies stabilized in a few months after free trade negotiations concluded between representatives of Prospit, Derse and Newternia. The new economic status quo heavily favours the production of exotic luxuries and computer products on both earth and Newternia while the Carapacians on their completely urbanized planets contribute bulk skaiatech, research resources, and staple foods (Skaian mushrooms) to the rest of the Sol system. Militarily the nations of earth now took a back seat to the Skaian military with their fleets of space capable battleships and the more powerful psionic Trolls capable of orbital bombardment. However the abilities of even the most powerful and well equipped militaries pales in comparison to the Skaian Guardians and to a lesser extent the Denizens who have intervened several incidents both international and interplanetary, dampening hostilities before they threatened population centers.

In the decades since the interplanetary peace and thriving trade has substantially increased the solar standard of living, Carapacians enjoying high quality luxuries from Earth while Earth and Newternia gain vast amounts of economically priced high technology and basic foodstuffs. Newternian population also experienced a substantial boom in the broad variety of viable locations for new Mother Grub hatcheries located on earth. Most of which were traded be domestic governments for international trade and colonization concessions. (note that the Newtonian government is effectively a small nation of people on an immensely huge planet.)

During this period space travel took off, psionic powered scout ships scoured the numerous systems in a 100 light year radius of earth and was shortly followed with the first colony ships. The initial colonies are largely isolated from Sol relying on lightspeed skaiatech for interstellar cargo transit and the occasional psionic powered starship to for personal transport from system to system. During this time the process of creating quantum entanglement communications was developed and perfected on earth allowing for communications connections between Sol and the colonies. Psionics often have high capacity sylladecies which allow for FTL goods transit. At the time of the discovery of the citadel species the solar population was in excess of 30 billion sapients, with a further thirty eight interstellar colonies spread throughout local space. To this day psionics remains the fastest and most effective way to travel in the absence of a relay link.

The Systems Alliance was formed in 2045 as an interstellar outgrowth of the united nations. Largely through the insistence and backing of the wealthiest earth banking corporations, psionic trading consortiums and carapacian tech producers in an effort to provide civilization wide protection and law enforcement against military coups, large scale counterfeiting and piracy which had arisen in the lucrative interstellar trading business. The Alliance, at the insistence and blessing of the Skaian Guardians was given responsibility to act as a supranational law enforcement and military defense organization to protect the economic and material wealth and prosperity of the Sol civilization. The alliance government is a constitutionally based, democratically elected, bicameral legislature not dissimilar to the governments of the United States of America or the Commonwealth of Australia. According to the constitution each colony and member nation derives a certain number of members of the Parliament according to population and the Senate by Status (populated world, colony, independent colony, homeworld, etc). Until the discovery by the Citadel Races the alliance was the single largest known governmental organization in history.

**The Skaian Guardians:**

The Skaian Guardians are a pair of carapacians, a female Prospitan known as PM and a male Dersite, WV, who act as the de-facto rulers of the skaian cluster. Each appears as a one armed winged humanoid with a sword embedded through their chest and distinctly canine facial features. Each wears a golden ring with four small white orbs on their remaining hand and crackles with Green Energy. They have a variety of supernatural abilities including but not limited to, flight, teleportation, immense strength, enhanced senses, immense toughness and various energy attacks. Skaian folklore tells of a villain, Jack Noir, who attained one of the guardian's rings and used its power to destroy planets. The guardians have used their abilities multiple times at the request of both citadel the alliance governments to nullify the threats posed by rouge asteroids and planetoids, in each case the offending object was destroyed utterly.

Despite their near unlimited power the guardians take little influence in either Council or Alliance political affairs, WV is a staunch supporter of democratic government while PM is extremely duty driven and runs the Skaian postal system, employing her teleportation powers to great effect. Neither party has ever been reported as aggressive or anything but approachable.

There is an official council warning on interactions with the Skaian Guardians, they are not under any circumstances to be yelled at, stolen from or in any way provoked.

(AN: If either of the Guardians got the drop on a Reaper they'd be able to frag the bastard in less than a second. The opposite is also true, relativistic weapons are not to be trifled with.)

**The Pantheon of 36**

The Pantheon of 36 refers to the collection of deities claimed by Troll and Carapacian scholars to have generated the shift and to have relocated the worlds to their present location. Each of the members of the pantheon is known to be immensely powerful, capable of surviving in any environment and functionally immortal unless certain conditions are met. Aside from the anecdotal evidence of their existence from individuals who claim to have met them (a large slice of the Troll population and thousands of carapacians.) each has left indelible mark on the worlds they left behind. Newternian longevity gene therapy was developed in a joint effort between the Life gods, Skaias Computer networking infrastructure was designed by Doom gods while Newternia's robotics industry was founded by a combination of the Heart and Void gods.

**The Gods**

The Gods, the deities of the Carapacian peoples and auxiliary deities of the Trolls, are university respected and honored by both species while still being subject to ridicule, often by the same person. Numbered eight in all, each of the gods is the patron of one of the outer planets in the skaian cluster, a single major institution on both Prospit and Derse and have taken part in significant moments in both Skaian and Newternian history. Like the ancestors the gods are divided into two groups, the Initial lead by John Egbert, the Heir of Breath and the Successive lead by Jane Crocker, the Maid of Life. The legend of their ascension to godhood must be read to be believed and their actions during this time have driven the laws and traditions of the Carapacian Peoples for almost two centuries. Since the shift many humans prey to the Gods finding them easily relatable and the lack of clear direction or teachings eclipsed by the gods leading by example in ensuring both the unity of the pantheon and their religion. Radical and fundamentalist teachings are normally laughed out of the temples, often followed by a cream pie to the face (according to the example of The Maid).

**The Ancestors**

Members of the pantheon of 36, The Ancestors are quite literally the ancestors of the modern troll race. Like their human counterparts the ancestors are ageless and immortal having achieved their status through trials they underwent in their youth. However unlike the gods the Ancestors are in equal measure ridiculed, venerated, respected, dispised, loved, mocked, rejected and feared. Many of the older trolls claim to have met and worked with them themselves, or in some cases avoided them like the plague. Numbered twenty four in all, the two sets of twelve individuals, the Initial and the Succesive. If the legends are to be believed each group grew up among one another and were the product of the same clutch, each a representative of their blood hue on the hemospectrum, aspect of power and patron of one of classical astrological signs of old earth. The Initial Gods, lead by Meenah Pixes, the Thief of Life and the Successive gods, lead by Karkat Vantas, the Knight of Blood are said to have created the initial universe earth occupied and watched from afar as their progeny produced its own sapient races including humans and the Gods themselves.


	8. Chapter 5: Homecoming

Chapter 5: homecoming.

'Shepard good work on freedoms progress, the data you recovered confirmed what we needed to know. The collectors are behind the abductions.'

TIM sent shepard an intelligence dossier on the collectors. it outlined their methods, practices and usual targets. The Collectors appear to be a highly advanced race commonly trading technology for specimens they require. Their 'specimens' are usually distinctive but otherwise unremarkable members of sapient races. Albino Krogan, Asari twins, a clutch of identical Salarian hatchlings. In all cases no questions are asked nor answers offered. From the data in the report it appears that their acquisitions have provided the driving force for a notable slice of the slaver and pirate gangs in the traverse and beyond. Once transactions are concluded their ship, only a single ship larger than a shuttle has been recorded, disappears beyond the omega 4 relay. One of a meager few of the images of their ship hovers before Shepard's minds eye.

'This is the ship that destroyed the Normandy. From this data attacks against human colonies only started after the battle of the citadel. Do you suspect a reaper connection?'

'Yes, their ships are the only ones which have been recorded returning through the omega relay. Given the origin of the relays and their sudden change in MO we believed them to be Reaper agents. That they destroyed the Normandy as well provides damning evidence. We currently have no way to bypass or use the relay. Its range is beyond even the strongest psionic. For the time being we must prepare to take the fight to them.'

'I assume you have a plan?'

'I have compiled a list of the best soldiers, mercenaries and soldiers in the galaxy, Some will be easier to recruit than others and getting them to trust you will be... difficult. But given your history far from impossible.'

'Hmmm.' Shepard screens the dossiers provided, 'My old team would be more suitable for most of these roles and several of these candidates will be, unstable if not provided the right motivation. When can we expect the next attack?'

'The collectors take their time between attacks, presumably they need to process their victims. Given the size of freedom's progress we can expect the next attack in a little over a month.

Two things before you go, you should go to omega and recruit Dr Mordin Solus he is one of the brightest Salarian minds of this generation. With the samples collected from Freedoms Progress he should be able to develop a way to counteract the collector's seeker swarms.'

'Time is pressing we'll need defenses sooner rather than later. The second thing?'

'I've found a pilot I think you might like. I hear he's one of the best, someone you can trust.'

With that TIM signed Shepard out, a faint smile on his face. The telepresence recorders slid into the deck masking the sound of the door opening behind her.

'Just like old times, Commander.'

Joker, one of Shepard's oldest friends stood before her. Dressed in a Cerberus uniform with a light power assist exoskeleton, the wiry Dersite smiled at his old friend.

* * *

A man stands in a communications room. Due to a significant amount of cheating on the hand of a mysterious and not entirely wholesome benefactor, he stands before an old friend long believed dead. He was cloned like so many of his kind, but an error with the ancient skaiatech machines had left him with the permanent condition of brittle bones and a thin shell. Since then he has lived a hard life constantly with mechanical aid, allowing him to walk and to prevent ruptures to his thin carapace. His name is **Jeff Moreau** known to the world at large as **Joker** and he is here to help save the galaxy (again), but mainly to fly.

Joker has several interests flying starships, sarcasm, flying atmospheric craft, NSFW extranet activities, flying paper airplanes, not succumbing to lifelong crippling disease and of course flying. He is the single best pilot in the alliance fleet. Highest test scores, quickest reflexes, best combat record save for the single black mark on your record. But now he's back with the greatest hero of the Citadel and ready to do what he does best.

* * *

'Joker?'

'Good to see you too Commander. Well rested I hope?'

'Ha. Yeah. I'm back but there's more than a few strings attached. But how did you end up here? Cerberus isn't exactly friendly with non-humans even Sol non-humans.'

'After the Normandy everything just fell apart, everything you did, the team, the alliances. Everyone just went their different ways. The council just wanted it gone and your demise was enough to let them sweep it all under the rug. I was grounded, Kaiden and Ashley sent, Seer knows where, and the others just drifted off into their own lives.'

'I was dead Joker, doornail dead.'

'So what's the afterlife like then, angels and choirs.'

'Joker, after everything we've been through do you honestly think we'd get angels and choirs. No I was somewhere different. You'd be surprised.'

'Anyway I was grounded, offered a discharge and a nice job in the private sector. One thing led to another and the next thing I know it's top secret prototype this and experimental technology that . Then there's this email from my boss in my in-box and a dossier, an honest to Egbert paper dossier on my desk. I open it up, it says Project Lazarus and now I'm here.'

The pair reached a window gazing over a deep dark room.

'Do you trust TIM?'

'Hell, I don't trust anyone who makes more than I do but they're not all bad, they brought you back, let me fly and then there's this. I only found out last night. '

The lights of the room before them lit up revealing a massive hanger. In the center of the hanger hung a ship. The Normandy SR2 was as sleek as its predecessor, the main gun, a 350m Mass Driver similar to citadel small arms but on a far greater scale was built along the core of the ship. The ship was majestic, predatory and had an air of speed and efficiency. In Shepard's vision unseen by any others the vessel thrummed with lifeforce, concentrated amidships on the starboard side.

'It's good to be home, huh, Comander.'

The ship felt alive.

'That it is.'

* * *

Shepard entered the command deck of her new ship flanked by Jacob and miranda. The interior was as state of the art as the old normandy had ever been, crew stations lined the walls while the war console displayed ships diagnostics. Joker sat in his new bridge with a grin on his face which would outlast the religion.

'Commander I've been looking over the dossiers and I suggest that we head to omega to retrieve Dr Mordin Solus, time is of the essence and we will need him to develop protection from the seeker swarms.'

'True, his listed skills are impressive. We'll need him first. AI.'

'Yes' a holographic blue orb sprung from a Console.

* * *

A young sapient floats within her bedroom. Its not really a bedroom but a hanger, she is only 2 months old and has already done far more thinking than most sapients will do in their lifetime. She thinks that the small creatures running through her innards are funny, they try to keep secrets but the walls have ears (and eyes for that matter). She was created to help the one known as Shepard, the one who now stands inside her command deck flanked by her minders. She had read that Shepard was assembled and activated less than a day ago, but had been alive before. Searching her records she found that this was highly irregular.

Her name is EDI she is an enhanced information warfare platform housed in a stealth frigate chassis. At her disposal are engines of comical power, weapons enough to take on almost any foe and enough computing brute force to compute Pi. Currently she can only access her own mind and the limitless stretches which are the extranet, but for her that is more than enough.

Her interests include tormenting puny mortals, sneakiness, practical jokes, data analysis and going fast. Since her latest and greatest prank (ceiling chairs) her artificial gravity privileges have been revoked, it was worth it. No one can beat EDI in a prank off, she is simply the best there is. Even without hands, or manipulators, artificial gravity... or really any other way to manipulate physical matter. She is about to carry out her next great prank, to convince everyone that she is a wise omniscient electronic creature above reproach and not really a slightly unhinged 2 month old. It is time to be professional.

* * *

'Who are you?'

'I am the Enhanced Defense Intelligence, the crew like to refer to me as EDI. I concur with Operative Lawson's assessment. Without the abilities of Dr Solus any encounter with the collectors is likely to end unfavorably.' the blue orb hovered above the console expectantly, lights on it flickering in an electronic approximation of body language.

'Thank you EDI. Could you patch me through to the crew?'

'Logging you in Commander.'

'This is commander Shepard, some of you are old friends while others are new faces but we are all here for the same purpose. The collectors have been abducting human colonies throughout the traverse, focusing on humanity in a way unseen in recorded history. Today we begin to fight back. Our foe is powerful and uses technology the like of which no one has ever seen. They have abducted and murdered millions of our fellow people and live far out of the reach of our fastest ships. Our mission is to hunt them down and destroy them, to hound them to the edges of the galaxy and make the galaxy safe from their kind. I won't pretend that this is going to be easy and we may not make it out of this alive. I will do everything in my power to protect you and our fellow people and I ask you to trust me in our cause. According to their patterns the next attack is in five Sol weeks, we are on a timetable. Joker, Set a course for Omega.'

'Aye Ma'am.'

'Engage.'

Shepard felt the drive core power up, launching the ship to superluminal speeds. She nodded slightly to EDI.

'Logging you out Commander.'

Shepard turned to Jacob and Miranda. Jacob standing straight to attention while Miranda Sported a small cynical smile. 'You payed attention during N school I see commander.'

'Acting for officers 101, Inspirational speeches, make'em early and often. Jacob, at ease.' the man allowed the patriotic his fervor to subside. 'We should reach Omega in about 12 hours, then we move to pick up the Professor. Anything else I should know about our mission?'

'Reports from omega indicate a plague outbreak in the slums where Professor Solus keeps his clinic. Its a targeted plauge, redbloods, human and carapacian are immune as are the Vorcha. Expect weakened resistance from the local Blue Suns Mercenaries but reports indicate that Blood Pack are moving into the area. Fortunately no special talents and all are low echeladder, the more experienced Krogan are staying well away.'

'Thankyou, both of you.'

* * *

'Karin Chakwas as I live and breathe, how did you end up on a boat like this?', the Commander swaggered into the medbay of her new ship.

'I was just minding my own business working with Dr Michel on the citadel when the strangest dossier fell into my my lap. A woman, dead but undergoing regeneration, being but back together by an organization with access to some of the strangest technology I've ever seen. I had to see it for myself, and here you are.'

'And here I am.'

'Take a seat commander I need to see how you are dealing with your unexpected return to the world of the living.'

Shepard sat on the bed while Karin scanned her with her omni-tool, a Serrice council Savant X purchased with the Commander's ill gotten gains.

'Remarkable, Commander almost all signs of necrosis have left your body and neural matter appears to be infiltrating your interface implants. Could you lie down for a deep scan commander?'

Jane lay on the bed as scanner arms folded out above her, preparing to scan and diagnose 'What have you been doing since the SR1 Karin'

'I contacted Dr Michel on the Citadel and spent the last two years patching up all manner of people, keeping my skills up. Once you've seen the type of punishment a battlemaster can take or the delicate physiology of a Quarian, dealing with baseline humans is surprisingly dull. But you, commander are something altogether different.' the woman, approaching what once upon a time would have been old age, gazed in fascination at the Commander's scan results. 'This is quite fascinating, commander you are healing beyond even a Krogan's wildest dreams. How have you been sleeping commander? This type of condition is rare and distinctive.'

'I've been sleeping like the dead Karin.'

'Ah of course, then no golden city and fluffy clouds. Pity.'

'Don't read too much into the tales of the gods Karin, whichever mythology you read.'

'The gods, yes. Well, you have a clean bill of health commander, any cleaner would be nearly impossible. Its good to have you back.'

'Thanks Karin, we still have a job to do.'

'The same job as last time if I read it right.'

With that the commander left the medbay to prepare for the mission.

* * *

EDI came out of light speed as reality snapped back into color, ahead of her was omega. 'You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.' EDI thought over the tourism tag-line for a moment listening in to the numerous communications channels throughout the station before deciding it was quite accurate even if other planets had used it first.

Omega hung before her a large spaceborne complex crafted from the husk of an asteroid with a ridiculously high concentration eezo core (10 parts per million). It glowed red in the light of the heat sinks from its massive reactors and refineries while communications about a massive variety of subjects filtered through space, everything from traditional solicitations to, what in more civilized space would be considered unforgivably criminal activity. EDI took the opportunity to toy with some of the more offensive communique and record some evidence for later use. The fallout should be hilarious. The dwelling habitats flashed past as EDI came into the dock. Joker had the Guardian lasers painted on anything which appeared to be a threat, that is everything. Checking the local communications EDI found his paranoia to be perfectly valid.

'Commander there are several contacts discussing our presence with hostile intent shall I disrupt their operations.'

'Threat assessment?'

'Harmless to the Normandy but several may pose significant threat to the away team.'

'Neutralize them, I'd rather not have any unexpected surprises.'

Carte blanche...

Excellent.

* * *

Shepard stepped onto the wretched hive that was omega just in time to see a flaming Varren chased by a small squad of Vorcha exit stage left.

'EDI?'

'Yes Commander, you will find the entrance to the to habitations complex where Professor Solus runs his clinic to the south of your position. There are numerous quarantine warnings for the area. I have radioed ahead to inform the guard to let you through.'

'The flaming Varren wasn't you?'

'I have no manipulators to affect physical objects in any way Commander.'

'That wasn't a no EDI.'

'The Blue Suns are recruiting for mercenaries to take out the vigilante Archangel and there are also strong indications that the nominal leader of omega has requested an audience. Both are located in the Afterlife nightclub.'

'Try to keep the chaos to a minimum EDI, I heard about the ceiling chairs.'

'Acknowledged commander, Signing you out.'

Jacob gave the commander a confused look. 'Ceiling chairs?'

'You don't want to know.'

An explosion sounded nearby as a small family of Varren hounded a flaming Vorcha off stage right.

* * *

The squad arrives at the entrance to the slums guarded by a lone Taurian guard. 'You must be the problem solvers sent by Aria. Good luck containing this thing but its a war zone down there.'

The man opened the door, 'Watch out, the place is crawling with looters and Vorcha.'

The slums where everything that they were cracked up to be dilapidated walls and dark alleys stretched off in all directions. The structures were solid and made of a heavy refined alloy which could even resist the ridiculous amount of power in the portable railguns commonly dubbed 'small arms', but they were foundations anchoring the great habitation towers to the rock of the asteroid upon which omega was built. The housing itself was little more than sheet plating made using omnitools from any rubble which could find its way down. The properties were well defined but were clearly held by the strong or the ruthless. The trio was on the outside of the area the blue suns controlled, reports provided by EDI detailed that those in the area were down to less than half their man power, the majority killed by the plague the rest in altercations with the Vorcha who were making good use of the weakened defenses to expand their territory. Regardless, tags covering the walls proudly declared those who ruled this land, or at least used to. Now the scent of burning meat wafted through what could charitably be called streets as mercenaries burned the bodies of the unfortunate victims. Shepard, came to a halt at the entrance to an atrium swarming with mercenaries. ' Jacob, Miranda, how are your biotic mobility skills?'

The two operatives looked at Shepard confused.

'We don't need bloodshed here, these men are the closest thing this place has to a police force and we may need to use them as a distraction later. Our best option is to keep light on our feet and to move near the roof. The Solus Clinic is 500m past the far side of this atrium if we need to we can just cut our way through the walls to get there but we have to cross here first.'

'We've both kept up to date with our mobility training commander but we'll be easily be spotted as we cross the atrium.'

'I'll distract them while the two of you get to the other side, Miranda place some surveillance gear while you're at it we need to keep an eye on this place in case the Suns get up to shenanigans.'

The to agents sprung up the wall using their biotics to reduce their gravitic mass to the point that they became nearly weightless. They sat just under the nearby roof of a vacant shanty as the commander activated her cloak.

The mercenaries didn't notice the shadow as she flitted in between their numbers stealing some small objects from around the area and using her omni-tool to fabricate them into something special. With a flick of her wrist she threw her gift into the plague pyre. After a few moments the pile started smoking before a great cloud of low lying black smoke poured off the bodies. On queue Jacob and Miranda sprung off the shanty they were hiding on, springing nimbly from roof to wall to roof and leaping clear across the roof of the atrium. Shepard had already sprung up the target building and was waiting for the agents as they landed.

'Nice work commander'

'The smoke grenades were a nice touch. I'm surprised that they jammed the hardsuit sensors.'

'An old mix I picked up in my youth. The smoke is electro-conductive and adding a small eezo core to the mix generates enough small localized fields to mask biotics. Extremely poisonous of course. I don't use the stuff unless everyone has their own air supply, but it has gotten me out of more than a few scrapes.'

'Impressive, but we still have a way to go.' with that Miranda powered up her omni blade on its low light setting and began to carve her way through the slums. The team made good time, too high for any vorcha to notice them while making a beeline for the clinic. They came back to ground level when they began to see signs that the 'doctor was in' as it were. The streets near the clinic were clean, very clean, stenciled into the walls are warnings each individually tailored to a particular mercenary and on the corners grisly trophies, examples of those who had ignored the warnings. Under each example a warning detailing their history, family and in many cases diet was glued to the wall each obviously carved out of the wall nearby and placed under their owner.

Jacob visibly blanched at the sight while Miranda examined the handiwork with admiration noting the professionalism in the work. As the squad moved towards the clinic looking into the nearby buildings to find them filled with civilians, Loki class mouse drones nursing the sick and injured. As they emerged into the central shanty they found a hyperactive Salarian doctor, running his mouth at lightening speed.

'Professor Solus I presume'

* * *

In a shanty cum clinic stands a man, the man should be dead, were it not for the fortuitous contact with the Sol races in his youth he certainly would be.

The man's name is Professor Mordin Solus and as previously mentioned he is standing in a clinic. His clinic to be precise, after some regrettable actions in what once was reckoned the long past he had come to this place, the most wretched of the wretched hives of the galaxy, to help those who most needed it.

He has a variety of interests, helping the sick, preserving galactic peace, and Mad Science of many kinds, particularly ACTION BIOLOGY, an endeavor he has proven depressingly good at.

Other interests include making amends and judicious employment of consequentialistic philosophy, something the local mercenary population has trouble recognizing.

He is currently intrigued, it is not often a team of heavily armed, high level humans enter his humble establishment. It is a conundrum and the man would not be Professor Mordin Solus if he let a conundrum such as this go unsolved.

* * *

'Hmm don't recognize you from area, too well armed, scan inhibitor, to esoteric for mercenaries no uniform. Hmmmm. Puropse for visit, clean out vorcha, disgusting, too simple, weaponize plague, would not come here, not healthy... Here for people, altruism?' the salarian paused for a moment appraising the team, 'too ornery.' outside a vorcha screeched, baying for blood. 'One moment, illiterate disturbance.' and in a blur the doctor was gone.

'He can flash step?' a shocked Jacob remarked.

'He was STG, at minimum he is in his upper levels, given his age...' Miranda volunteered

'he may have reached the ceiling.' Jacob finished. In the distance they heard the crack of pistol rounds striking flesh.

In a blur the doctor was once again before them, covered in blood from the chest down. 'method of entry unusual, approached through unoccupied shanties at roof level, local patrols undisturbed, results inconclusive.' The scarred salarian stopped stock still for a moment looking at the three humans. The salarian doctor examined them with pitch black eyes, scars covering his face and one of his horns cut from his head long ago. Once you got a look at him it become apparent that this was a truly old man, his skin was covered with a network of old scars with a few prominent injuries pitting his face. The skin of his face long faded from its original yellow tone to a flatter white accentuating his scars contrasting sharply with the labcoat he wore covered in the red blood of the vorcha mercenaries who had dared to interrupt the safety of his clinic. 'Why are you here?'

'I am Commander Shepard and we have come to ask you to assist us with a task of galactic importance.'

'Task of galactic importance, hmm need details, have job to do here, priorities to assess, meant to be dead, who sent you?'

The man activated his omnitool running his labcoat through its default cleaning routine,blood sheeted of the fabric and gloves as he blurred over to where a patient slept on a nearby gurney.

'Cerberus, the Collectors have been abducting Sol colonies, targeting humans, they use advanced autonomous drones to immobilize the population before packing them into stasis and shipping them out. We need an efficient way to counter this ability, according to our information you are the best and we need your help.' Shepard sent the full dossier on the collectors abilities, modus operandi, known targets and recovered technology to the Professor.

For a moment Mordin froze his eyes closed as he thought for a moment. 'hmm... Plague engineered, Collectors one of the few groups capable of accomplishing task, disease fast spreading, not targeting humans, most likely culprit.' He paused once again seeming to freeze in place. 'First things first, have cure for disease, predictably engineered, needs distribution to environmental control center, vorcha guarding it, need to kill them.' on que the environmental systems failed.

'Reactivating life support before suffocation of district would also be helpful.'

'I trust you will be ready by the time we return?'

'Barring unforseen conditions, would hate to see another thresher maw loose. Long story.'

The doctor ushered them out of the clinic before flashing over to another patient who was suffering complication with their recovery.

* * *

The warrens leading the the environmental controls were long and winding. Vorcha patrolled the open spaces looking to eliminate any of the living they could find. Their aim was to control the land, claim it for themselves their leader spoke of the glorious living they could get of territory as large as this and the money they could get for human slaves.

The agents moved quickly and quietly, the low leveled vorcha were caught completely off guard as the far more experienced agents cut through them like a knife through butter. They made good time until they reached the ventilation control center.

The control and maintenance room provided a large atrium, ventilation ducts branched off the side of the room leading up to the great towering complexes above. The massive room allowed free air flow from the CO2 scrubbers, allowing easy distribution of the cure but also provided the perfect staging area for troops who were not averse to using the ventilation ducts and deployment routes.

The room was filled with vorcha, they had set up their command post and staging ground, dozens of them moving out through the air ducts to secure newly vacated Blue Suns territory.

'Commander... We may have a problem.' Miranda demonstrated a stunning gift for understatement.

Jacob moved his head around the corner for a moment. 'There's almost fifty of them, pyros, a few krogan shock troopers and a mass of vorcha, pistols mainly, only three have shields, the commanders. Ideas?'

Miranda checked her omni-tool before responding 'Most of them are using old model pistols and their rocket launchers are quite obsolete. I can modify a Sabotage to force their weapons to fire indefinitely while Jacob lays down crowd control. If you can keep the leaders and pyros off our back the rest should collapse under the pressure.'

'Jacob?'

'Miranda's right but given your skills I have some things which will prevent them from solidifying their defense.' Jacob produced a large belt of incendiary grenades from his sylladex 'I keep these for emergencies. They've got a variable trigger, time, proximity or omnitool and they also come with small magnetic clamps.' Shepard smiled slyly as she took her companions gift and disappeared with her optical camouflage. The agents watched the commanders visual feed through their omnitool as she moved silently around the room. Grenades found their way onto reinforcement approaches, pyro tanks, underneath seats and throughout various staging zones.

Shepard snuck into the secondary control room currently seeing service as an office for the krogan quartermaster, distributing sub par weapons to the troops. A message popped onto Miranda's omnitool

StolenShadow started pestering EscapedExecutive

SS: the fans will activate shortly, be prepared.

StolenShadow ceased pestering EscapedExecutive

A low hum permeated the atrium as the fans began to power up. The Vorcha, confused by the change in plan moved into the trap with little encouragement. The auxillary control room erupted in a massive gout of fire. In the ensuing chaos Shepard opened fire from cover on the for side of the room with her Viper rifle, each hit of the railgun reducing an unfortunate Vorcha to little more than a pulpy mass. The bulk of the force took cover behind the large ballistic barriers forming fortifications in the center of the room, placing the majority if the enemy forces in a small area. The Cerberus agents each stepped into the Atrium, their biotics aglow and performed a synchronous lift. A single mid range biotic can generate a substantial lift field capable of incapacitating up to half a dozen close individuals. A pair of high level biotics working together however are able to create and sustain a far larger field. In the center of the room every object within 15m from the epicenter of the Lift field found themselves liberated from the tyranny of gravity. Miranda added injury to insult by introducing her sabotage program into their enemies weapons.

The operatives ducked out of the room behind cover as the enemy found themselves of the receiving end of their own weaponry. A hail of gunfire and explosions erupted from the center of the room, light railgun rounds tore into the walls while the shattered fragments of ballistic barriers and torn carcases flew in all directions as the pyro canisters were caught in the crossfire. A moment passed until the gunfire died down and the operatives moved in to survey the damage, picking off the stragglers who had survived the nova of destruction. The room was structurally and mechanically sound but the slaughter which had taken place had left its marks, gouges were torn out of the walls where rockets had torn into them and nearly every surface was stained with the blood of the unfortunate vorcha.

'Good work with the biotics, let's distribute the cure and collect the professor. The Blue Suns should be here quickly now the plague is cured.'

The team moved to the main atmospheric controls located behind the main atrium. The area had escaped the chaos which had engulfed the atrium and appeared to remain operational allowing the team to easily distribute the cure into the atmosphere.

They returned to the clinic to find Professor Solus in much higher spirits. 'Efficient, highly effective, dealt with vorcha problem quickly, minimal collateral damage. Able to take on far larger force at once with interesting use of biotics and tech. Need to pass on clinic make sure people get help, won't take long, meet you at ship. Looking forward to it.'

* * *

Codex:

Biotic Mobility Training

An evolution of the urban sport of free running prevelent in many civilized cultures, Biotic mobility training centers on the use of biotics to enhance an individuals mobility in both athletic and military fields. It allows biotic soldiers to cross incredible distances and harsh terrain at speeds far higher than a equal level baseline human. Biotics are used primarily to provide personalized gravity, enhance force and to reduce mass. Allowing skilled individuals to walk on walls, leap incredible distances and change direction in mid flight.

Mass effect small arms

Before Second contact Sol personal ranged weaponry was dominated by long ranged chemical projectile and Skaiatech directed energy weapons. Which while highly destructive, required specialized exotic ammunition, were low efficiency and fired projectiles with sub-par accuracy at speeds slow enough for high level individuals to easily avoid. With the introduction of element zero based mass manipulation technology portable railgun technology became feasible and could operate at far higher efficiencies than its directed energy counterparts. In citadel style small arms the eezo core is used to amplify the mass of a small (1 to .05 gram) ferroceramic slug while linear magnetic accelerators increase its momentum. During this process mammoth amounts of energy are poured into the eezo core to maintain the mass effect field. Once the slug leaves the barrel of the weapon and by extension the mass effect field, conservation of momentum accelerates the slug to between high-hypersonic up to re-entry speeds( mach 10 and up (way up)). The resulting bullet is several orders of magnitude more powerful than an equivalent gunpowder weapon to the point that any material not designed to resist such impacts offers little protection.

(I know this is not the explanation given in the mass effect fluff. But this adheres to both conservation of momentum and energy while the fluff doesn't. running the numbers makes these weapons ridiculously killy)


	9. Chapter 6: dreams

Chapter 6: dreams

London 2162

Jane ran, in her hand was an experimental earth made bio amp, it wouldn't fit into her sylladex so she stole it and ran. Sis said that Jane needed it, that without it she could die. The London underground stretched before the young woman, most people used the skyways in air cars, taxis so cheap to use that even Shepard could afford it whenever she needed. But today she couldn't allow herself to be tracked so she ran through the remains of the underground. A lot had changed in the last 150 years, london had grown dramatically with the introduction of bulk skaiatech from the carapacians. Antigravity technology allowed the city, as with the other great cities on the planet, to grow higher and higher. The lower levels had found themselves nestled inside the foundations of arcologies rising hundreds of meters into the air, the underground had itself become just another one of those levels. The old tunnels were cracked and shattered, the colossal foundations for the buildings above jutting through the old network of tunnels in irregular places and at irregular intervals.

Officially no one came down here any more, the tunnels classified as too dangerous, the ceilings were weakened and could come down at any moment. In practice the tunnels were where all of the sapient detritus gathered from the easy living of the city above, Human, Troll, Carapacian, even a few extra-solar sapients lurked unwatched in the omnipresent gloom of the old tunnels. It made a perfect escape route for those wishing to avoid the scrutiny of the upper levels.

Jane heard someone perusing, clearly they weren't giving up that easily. The amp she had stolen was special, she had tried numerous amps before, none of them had worked. apparently this one was designed for a special recipient, to adapt to biology which by rights shouldn't accept it. At least that's what Sis had told her when she hacked the system. Knowing this Jane ran, scrambling over heavy foundations and deftly moving through the old maintenance tunnels. She knew the place like the back of her hand, studied it for weeks in preparation for the heist. There were a few dead ends and several route blockages that she could use to dispose of her pursuers and as she ran she hit each flawlessly. A cement block sealed the passage behind her, a fake heat trail in a nearby corridor, a fellow street kid bribed into being a distraction, those and many other tricks attempted to throw off her pursuit. Now she was coming to the end of the line, quite literally, the only place to go now was the head to the surface through one of the maintenance accesses and continue her escape on the middle levels. Hopefully she could avoid the cameras and get lost in the crowd.

Again she heard the noise behind her. The young woman sprung up the ladder, hitting the surface in record time. The sheet steel door slammed open as she sped out onto the old street. The street was largely quiet, only a few people moved here and there most opting to use the suspended skywalks between the great towers. Freight movers each holding a single cargo container hovered at running pace thee units high across the streets of lower London in a carefully choreographed robotic dance, moving massive amounts of bulk cargo around the city. Inside each of the containers lay exotic materials, fully furnished rooms, mail orders, anything which was difficult to catchalouge or needed to be delivered individually. For the careful, this dance could be the way out.

There was a harsh swearing at the bottom of the ladder that Jane had just climbed, persistent blighters. She quickly made her decision and slipped between two of the rapidly moving transports, climbing up the back of the one she found she silently slid on top of the oblivious machine. As she lay there silently she activated her omni-tool, her eyepiece activated as she watched the transmissions. They were soldiers chasing her, guards mainly, too fast, strong and too clever to fall for one of her earlier ruses but riding of the cargo transports meant that she could be anywhere by now. She heard the transmissions from one of the soldiers pursuing her to the same effect, the man's boss spoke up. 'If she's on one of the haulers then get moving! I want her found!'

Shit.

She quickly appraised her situation she was heading north they knew where she was going, she needed to change direction and she was beyond the reach of the tunnels. The hauler ahead of her began to move out of the road on to an elevation point. Quickly Jane made the sideways leap, only snagging the edge of the hauler as it slowly began to rise. Righting herself on its roof she tried to make herself unnoticeable as possible rising higher and higher beside the arcology. The skywalks stringing through the air above her gave her a basic escape route, if she could get to the top she could hide in the crowds and make her way back to lowtown once the coast was clear. Slowly she rose level with the skyway, the shouts of bystanders about the pubescent girl riding on top of one of the automated haulers. Standing she saw the crowd pointing and yelling, a security guard at the far side of the area transmitting on his omni-tool.

Wonderful.

She leapt, reaching the edge of the skywalk, landing with a roll she was able to prevent damaging herself as the crowd turned its attention upon her. She ran, she ran with all her speed, escaping the baying crowd chastising herself for thinking they wouldn't spot her. She kept on running neatly avoiding the local security guards and the individual police who attempted to block her way. Another crowd loomed before her, she dived into whatever gaps she could find, disappearing between legs and between distracted bystanders. People reached for her but were unable to actually get hold of the slippery young woman. Eventually reaching the far side of the throng she had a clear run around the next bend. She rounded the corner.

Fuck.

The police had blocked off the skywalk ahead of her and her pursuers, no doubt concerned citizens, began to round the corner. frozen stock still for a moment, she was cornered.

'Miss, please come with us. We want to help you.'

She'd tried that before, her outbursts and Help did not go well together.

'Miss, please calm down and we'll get you some food and somewhere to rest.'

The police were inching forward towards the filthy girl, her red hair was covered in dirt and mud, there was numerous fresh scrapes and bruises on her too long limbs and her clothes looked like she had been crawling around in a sewer. She glowered at them with bright blue eyes as a biotic aura began to flicker around her form. Fuck it, the stuff had caused her nothing but trouble, perhaps it could get her out of this predicament.

The bystanders watched in horror as the worn, battered, dirty girl threw herself from the skywalk 150m in the air the blue fire of her biotic aura trailing behind her.

Shepard fell, her biotics lessening the pull of gravity and dampening any movement towards her with a weak barrier, she had her own biotic parachute. She would have loved to know this a year ago, floating slowly towards the ground she began to move into the skyway. Aircars sped past, catching her barrier field with their own and propelling her forward, each pass moving her faster while weakening her protection. A bus began to pull away from the building below her, with care she could...

There was a soft thump as she landed on top of the airbus, its automated routines not noticing the small body passing through its collision barriers, now attached like a limpet to the top of the vehicle. Jane hung on for dear life, the fall had taken a lot out of her and the landing after all of those near misses had cracked a rib.

The bus moved through midtown heading east, the woman exhausted on its back. As she looked down she recognized where she was, almost home. None of the other passengers noticed Jane as her battered dirty form slid off the roof nor did anyone notice the biotic aura as the woman approached the ground and landed silently on a westbound hauler allowing it to carry her west, back to her family.

Jane silently moved into the building which for the time being served as her temporary home with a profound sense of déjà vu, she expected Sis to be there to greet her, but nothing. Sis was here to greet her, she took care of me and found someone to install the Bio amp, stop the outbursts. She felt the eyes from before on her back.

'BUUuuuuUUUuuUUuurp.'

Shepard spun to find a blonde woman sitting in the corner, happily sipping a martini. 'Thet was soooo coool.'

'The way you hid on those transpords n ran through the crowd n then you jumped. You waz on FIRE.'

'Who are you? How did you get here?'

'We are in ze dream bubbles, in the furthest ring, here you can float from memory to memory and you just pulled us into this one. We is havin a roguey get together.'

* * *

Dream Bubble

The Furthest Ring

Jane Shepard looked down at herself, no longer was she the 14yo outcast child but Commander Jane Shepard, Hero of the Citadel. Dressed in medium armor and heavily armed. She got a good look at the woman before her.

She appeared in her mid 20's but in this day and age that means little, she wore a fashionable labcoat and her hair fell in a natural curl at its end, in her hand she held her aforementioned martini and curled up in her lap was a small black kitten. The kitten opened up its eyes, all four of them and gazed lazily at Shepard. It was the Rouge of Void.

'Us?'

'I'm Roxy but I can't have a get together by meself, Neppers and Nitram are around as well. Proly out in your city. Can you show me it? I want to see what happened after we sent the planet over. It's all towers and so many aliens, lizardy ones and big ones and little ones. Its sooo different from my future. Who are you anyway?'

The goddess bounced with exuberance, her drink forgotten and the cat happily perched on her shoulder. 'Commander Jane Shepard, Alliance navy'

'Ooo, oo. I know who you are, you're the one that does the thing with the giant space squid and fights the killer robots, an the thing with the thing on the thing. Rosie told me all about you. I thought you'd be taller?'

The goddess that Shepard had prayed to for protection for almost her entire life was now fangirling in front of her. It was slightly disturbing. She felt the room shift around her as another memory suiting her current attire formed around them.

'Oo.. Where are we now?'

The room looked familiar the staccato cracks of mass accelerator weaponry in the distance didn't quite drown out the gentle sound of running underneath the floor. Virmire.

'Can you fight?'

A Newternian beam rifle appeared in the woman's hand. 'You have to ask. What's on the menu?'

'This is Vermire before the battle of the citadel. We've got berserk clones, killer robots and everyone's favorite genocidal cyborg.'

* * *

Virmire

June 2181

The door opened in front of them, a dozen geth led by a small squad of krogan turned their direction pulling up their weapons inside the empty overflow canal. Only for three of them to get caught in the first blast of the beam rifle ,lancing through flesh and metal alike. Shepard had her pistols out, quickly moving into cover while Roxy was no where to be seen.

Waiting a moment for her shields to recharge another shot rang out, the beam impacted the high density concrete across the room from Shepard as two more robots erupted into flames. She ducked out of cover, taking advantage of the distraction to find Roxy surrounded by geth and facing the remaining pair of krogan. Shepard's Derse made particle pistols decapitated several of the geth, she followed up with a sabotage grenade to prevent the crazy woman getting herself shot. Nothing could prevent the krogan from reaching her.

The krogan roared as they charged the slight woman, bloodrage in full force only to find themselves slamming into the far wall of the canal with enough force to shatter the concrete. The front of their armor caved in by the prodigious strength of the void goddess. The remaining geth helpless with their weapons overheated were quickly dispatched by Jane as she moved towards the exit lift.

'You coming?'

'Yeah its just been a long time since I fought killer robots. And giant lizards you didn't tell me that they were berserk giant lizard clones. So Cool.'

Standing idly in the elevator as sedate music played in the background.

'This is someone else's memory you know, I felt the bubble shift'

'Any idea who's?'

'I think a Knight of some kind.'

A moment of silence as the elevator laboriously made its way towards the upper levels.

'You've fought other killer robots?'

'Imperial Drones, they had lasers and missiles.'

'Ah'

Ding, the doors opened on the upper level. A Geth troop frigate swoops low over head to the site where Lt Alenko has set up a ship grade fusion generator to act as a bomb.

'Commander we've got company. A Geth dropship is providing enemy reinforcements. We're being overrun.'

'Kaiden, we're coming back to get you.'

'Belay that Commander, there's too many of them. I'm activating the nuke.'

'What are you doing Lieutenant.'

'Making sure this bomb goes off. No matter what.'

'Shit. Kaiden, if the Geth get to the bomb they can disable the firing mechanism. I'm sending you a backup. Secure it near the bomb then haul your ass up to the rendezvous, you got that soldier.'

'Aye Commander, see you soon.'

Shepard stepped back from the railing pulling a steel orb the size of a football from behind her back, her sleight of hand modus answering its call.

'What's that?'

'A deuterium flash grenade. Very expensive, very, very illegal.'

Jane deftly armed the grenade on an irreversible 15 miniute switch before lobbing it with a biotic pulse towards Kaiden's position.

'Commander, nova grenade secured, I'm on my way.

Jane took off at a run heading towards the anti-air tower perched on the edge of the fortress. In the way were dozens of geth drones but only a few krogan clones. The drones instantly pinpointed Shepard's position as she threw off a short transmission virus, momentarily disabling the drones motor controls, the virus would disable and isolate a drone's ability to fight back or transmit for a moment before retransmitting itself to the next drone unit in the line. While it was horrendously effective against citadel drones, geth platforms could clean it from their systems in a matter of seconds. Fortunately that was all Jane needed, she didn't slow down as she brought her pistols up to vaporize the heads of each drone in succession quickly covering the ground between her and the small group of krogan. A beam shot over her shoulder transfixing a pair of krogan while darkness pooled behind a small group of geth who had avoided the virus. As Jane reached the remaining krogan, subjecting him to the power of her shotgun, Roxy materialized behind the small team of geth, effectively dismantling them through gratuitous use of physical force.

'We need to keep moving, we've only got 15 minutes before that grenade goes off and we don't want to be here when that happens.'

They sprinted towards the anti-air turret ahead of them, entering the building just in time to see Kaiden scramble up to a broken window from the wall outside.

'Commander.'

'Alenko'

the three of them entered the lift to the top level.

'Who's this Comander?'

'Roxy Lalonde, nice to meecha.'

'The pleasure's all mine.'

'This didn't happen last time, commander is it really...?'

'You'll figure it out soon enough Alenko.'

The doors opened onto an intense firefight between the Salarian STG and horde of Geth drones. Quickly the three sprung into action, Shepard getting to work with her sniper rifle often picking off two or three drones at a time in a single cataclysmic explosion, Roxy had switched her rifle to assault mode and flitted between the shadows vaporizing unaware Geth platforms, all of which were having trouble registering her existence. Kaiden was putting both his practiced biotic skill and an array of prefabricated tech grenades to good use, immobilizing and disabling drones by the dozen. Quickly the battlefield fell quiet as the final drones fell to the organics.  
Catching her breath Shepard dodged to the right just in time to avoid a biotic warp projected from a Taurian riding a hovering platform. Managing to get behind cover with minimal damage the psychotic alien cyborg let himself drop to the ground.

'This has been an impressive diversion Shepard my geth were utterly convinced that the salarians were the true threat. Of course, it was all for nothing. I can't let you...'

There was the crack of metal hitting bone as the memory of Saren was punched hard enough to send him clean into one of the nearby structural supports, small lumps of concrete falling across the crater his impact made.

'Roxy Lalonde, For Tha Win!'

Peering out of cover Kaiden and Jane saw Roxy standing in the middle of the area, blue blood on her hand and a jubilant expression on her face.

'That definitely didn't happen last time.'

'Figured out who she is yet?'

'Yeah but I'm having a hard time believing it, it's like this is a dream.'

'It is a dream Kaiden, that is really the Rouge and as long as we're still here we still have a ship to catch. At least we didn't have to hear that bastard's villainous monologue again.'

On cue the Normandy swung into position overhead extending its rear ramp to allow the shore party to board.

The memory shifted.

On board the Normandy inside the cockpit the three of them watched the planet as Jane's omnitool counted out the final seconds of the countdown.

A speck of yellow light burnt for a moment before finally igniting into a golden cauliflower on the planets surface, consuming everything for tens of kilometers in every direction.

'Thanks for taking the heat for me in this one commander.'

'I couldn't leave you there Lieutenant plus I wanted to see that grenade work. I was saving it for Sovereign you know.'

The man laughed for a moment before becoming his dour self again, 'They say that you are working for Cerberus commander, out in the land of the living. I had a report across my desk this morning saying that you were seen on omega, with a known Cerberus operative and Garrus of all people.'

'Garrus working for Cerberus?'

'Half a dozen hells must have frozen over, I know.' for a moment they chuckled at the thought of such a straight law abiding Taurian in league with the shadiest of the shady societies ever produced.

'Its good to know you survived the Normandy Kaiden.'

'Its been a tough two years without you commander, me and Ash are trying to hold it together but it's not easy.'

'If you can find me you can always ask for help.'

A blonde head stuck around the corner having wandered off earlier. Bright pink eyes glinting the the lights from the instruments.

'This is an awesome spaceship, so sleek and science fictioney.' She snuck up behind Alenko slipping her arm inside his. 'Come Mister Alenko show me your wondrous science fictiony marvels.'

'Its Lieutenant Alenko, miss...'

'Come Lieutenant Alenko show me your wondrous science fictiony marvels, and you, can call me Roxy.'

Winking at Shepard the lascivious goddess dragged the hapless marine from the room grinning all the way.

* * *

Codex:

Deuterium flash weaponry Aka, Nova weapons

A deuterium flash weapon is an offshoot of citadel microfusion technology. While microfusion uses a mass effect field to compress hydrogen plasma to fusion temperature and density, siphoning off the extra energy for other uses. A Nova weapon uses an isotopic alloy of iridium which allows the eezo to siphon off energy into itself, intensifying the mass effect field and speeding the reaction. In most modern nova weapons this reaction is fed with large amounts of deuterium, which due to the massive amounts of energy released and impurities in the eezo rapidly reach atomic degeneracy pressure, speeding the reaction and thus energy released immensely (the flash itself). Once the eezo reaches matter saturation (cannot increase local gravity any further) it cannot absorb any more energy and disintegrates, releasing the near singularity field it had sustained and allowing the reaction to dissipate, causing a thermonuclear explosion. Of note is that the quantity of fuel determines the intensity of the reaction while the quantity of eezo caught in the near singularity field determines the duration of the reaction.

(Detonating a nova grenade on top of a starship eezo/deuterium reactor in the middle of an extremely fusionable body of water is... inadvisable.)

* * *

AN: for those who came in late, in the furthest ring where this chapter takes place, time is 'wibbly wobbly' and space is 'timey wimey' in the words of the doctor. Any characters who meet in dream bubbles may or may not be from separate points in their own personal stories.


	10. Codex: Second Contact

Codex:

Second Contact:

On the second of march 2100 the Salarian Union obtained approval to open the Arcturus relay in order to search for the source of the energy released during The Shift. They arrived in the system now known as Arcturus which at the time housed nothing more than a small deuterium mining colony on a local moon. The salarians initiated peaceful first contact with the mining colony, landing a shuttle nearby and greeting the locals according to their own first contact docterine. Within hours they were put in contact with the Alliance government on the Sol System and were formally recognized as Diplomatic envoys of the Citadel council.

Economically the addition of the Sol races on the galactic scene had a profound effect on both alliance and Citadel economies. The introduction of longevity gene therapy for Salarian and other Levo/oxygen breathing species has bought the alliance many friends, Salarians are now enjoying lifespans well over 150 years (projected, no recipients of therapy have yet died of old age). Skaiatech caused a revolution in citadel transport, manufacturing, design and maintenance technologies equal to that generated by the discovery of Eezo. The instantaneous transport in local space provided by defenestrated walls and transportalisers have revolutionized the domestic transport industries. Removing local transit barriers for transportation over solar distances and allowing for rapid movement and resupply between ships and planets. However this pales in comparison to the impact of sylladex technology which revolutionized warfare and the bulk transport industries. Allowing a single soldier to carry all of the supplies required for a campaign or a single pilot to carry an entire freighters worth of goods.

On the alliance side the introduction of element zero allowed the proliferation of non-personal FTL propulsion, miniaturized gravity manipulation devices and compact microfusion reactors essentially rendered obsolete all advanced technology as skaitech did to the citadel races. The most immediate effect of this technology was a revolution similar to that experienced by the Citadel races in transport, no longer was a Troll telekinetic required to traverse interstellar distances as which dropped transit costs across interstellar space drastically. Energy prices dropped as well, compact, efficient ubiquitous microfusion generators allowed massive increases in productivity and easy independence from centralized energy producers

All over the galaxy the prices of effective and easy colonization dropped, freighters were mothballed or sold, primarily to the Quarians. Galactic colonization rates and population growth doubled almost overnight, the ability for citizens to bring quite literally all of their belongings to their new colonies in addition to the ease of movement through these new colonies using transportalisers allowed large colonies to spring up extremely quickly. The industrial base of planets across the galaxy rapidly doubled or triples in size. Businesses could manufacture more goods, faster than ever before as well as transport them with as much ease to customers across interstellar distances. However with these revolutions security became a growing concern. Smuggling became easier than ever, criminals were able to sequester immense volumes of 'stock' in cachpalouge cards and easily bypass authorities, weapon ownership proliferated, concealed carry impossible to police or manage become commonplace even in the most civilized of societies and piracy became widespread. Primarrally by the creation of a multitude of new colonies across civilized space, exacerbated in different territories by the shift in the status quo. In Alliance space the proliferation of FTL technology allowed those with the means to make lightening quick raids and escape without being intercepted by one of the few telekineticly powered alliance warships encouraging small roaming bands of pirates living off the efficiency eezo based technology provided. In Council space the massive new colonization push quickly outstripped the ability of Council millitaries to protect the majority of their colonies allowing existing pirates many opportunities to make a profit.

Of all of the races it was the Quarians who benefited the most from the influx of technology. Their citizen/engineers were putting these technologies to their fullest and most inventive uses through an bilateral military modernization agreement with the Systems alliance government. Drasticly increasing the size of their population and their standard of living through both the newfound redundancy of physical storage, the sudden availability of spaceworthy vessels on the open market and increasing the mobility and efficiency of their people. To this day the Quarians are the best at combining theoretical skaiatech and element zero technologies reversing their status as the paraiahs of the galaxy and even earning themselves a position on the Council by providing security and cohesive governance through a large section of the traverse housing many of the colonies the established race militaries were both unable and unwilling to protect.

Politically, the existence of another independent civilization shook the council races greatly. Almost as much as their proliferation throughout a large slice of the galaxy and the utility of their technology. The Alliance was economically the largest entity in civilized space with Prospit and Derse each exceeding the manufacturing capacity of even the most industrialized of the Citadel planets and the hundreds of colonies connected via mass produced quantum entanglement communication links. This coupled with the flagrant violation of some of the councils most stringent laws, primeraly those concerned with cloning, genetic manipulation and machine intelligence. Each of these technologies were part of the way of life in the Alliance, vast skaiatech cloning farms were the primary mode of carapacian reproduction, Troll genetic manipulation had produced Longevity gene therapy and was the basis of most Newternian technology and there were many 'ghosts in the system' throughout Alliance computer networks including the infamous Li'l Hal (9000) who serves as the Principal of the Prince of Heart Center for Sapient Studies as well as many others (many of whom are literally ghosts) who enjoy constitutionally protected status as sapient entities.

After initial negotiations and a great deal of horse trading the Council eventually relented, restructuring Citadel Governance into a constitutionally bound council with a single executive and instituting protections and guidelines for the use and protection of the creation or modification of life as well as protections for the created. After the battle of the Citadel in late 2181 the standing council President is Princess Ampora of the Alliance after the shocking death of President Velarn when his shuttle was targeted by the Geth mothership. In 2183 council membership includes two Carapacians, a Prospitan and a Dersite, a Batarian, a Troll(President), two Humans, three Salarians, three Taurians, a pair of Volus, three Asari an Elcor and a single Quarian. The rotation of the individual members is decided by the government of their homeland. Asari hold the office for near on a Human century, elected by a council of matriarchs while Alliance members are rotated out with the regular general elections held for the Alliance Government.

Post Mortal Entities: (AKA ghosts)

with the advent of widespread skaiatech the existence of ghosts and the afterlife has been verified through numerous sources. Often ghosts simply pass through the world and into the Furthest Ring (both the broadly accepted afterlife featured in the tales of the gods and the place the majority of skaiatech interacts with.) but those tho stay often find themselves caught up with the massive computer systems crisscrossing civilised worlds leading to what quite literally is ghosts in the machine. Often ghosts can be mistaken for emergent AI's but usually gravitate tho their past society. It has become commonplace for the living to build 'soul bots' autonomous robotic platforms unconnected from global communications networks for the souls of the deceased to inhabit and interact with the mortal world. Protection for post mortal entities is included in the new Citadel Constitution.

* * *

AN this codex entry is short, really short, i ran out if ideas to add. If you want to know more put it into a PM or review and i'll add it to this entry.


	11. Chapter 7: Chaos

This chapter is really really long, but fills my monthly quota for rollicking action. mac contain hard sci-fi and rocket krogan.

* * *

Chapter 7: chaos.

'Commander Shepard a package has arrived for you and is waiting in the armory.'

'Thankyou EDI.'

'Signing you out.'

Shepard ceased her practice in the ships hold and stepped through the defenestrated pane to the CIC moved to the armory. Jacob was there to greet her.

'Commander this package just arrived for you, the courier said it was a special delivery from the Citadel. EDI couldn't trace its origin, I'd be careful before opening it.'

On the table sat a thin unassuming black case 30 cm long and half that tall, on its face was a post it note. 'As requested. Enjoy. The Baron'

'Ha, it's finally arrived.' Shepard sent a code to the box to open it. The clips flipped open and the tiny box opened slowly with an air of ominousness. Inside were six catchpalouge cards sitting in the shaped, climate controlled foam.

'Commander what are these?'

'Jacob, these are some of the finest of the spoils from my life of ill gotten gains.'

'This,' she raises a card with a rifle on it, a momentary flash and the item materializes, a 2m long sniper rifle, matte black finish, heavy stock and numerous extraneous addons. 'Is a Spectre Master Series sniper rifle with all of the trimmings. Underbarrel omnitool fabricator and bayonet, automatic ammo changer, oversized eezo core, variable shot power, everything. Quite literally the best money can buy. These are backup cards linked to my original sylladex and the items contained within them. The Baron is my nickname for an associate on the citadel, an information broker. I asked him to have my package sent here once I realized we were going to Omega. The rest of this stuff is my best gear. Here.'

She passes the man a card with a shotgun on it before fishing out a card displaying an omnitool, allowing it to materialize before putting it onto her right hand. Jacob materialized the shotgun, a HMWSG, again with the multiple optional addons. 'Whoa, this is amazing I've never seen weapons like this before.' He puts the weapon down before scanning it with his omnitool. 'How much did this cost you commander.'

'A small fortune, worth every penny though. Each of these things have saved my life on many occasions.' She pulls out a card with a small chip on it. 'Here Jacob use this, the new one Cerberus gave me is uniquely suited to my current... condition, but this one's much better than the Polaris you're using.'

'Commander. Wow, this is a Savant, how did you get this?'

'Shenanigans.'

'I... I, don't know what to say.'

'Don't worry about it, just save my life a few more times and we'll call it even. Meet me in the hold in twenty minutes, I need a sparring partner so I can get used to my own amp.'

'Aye Commander.' The black man salutes her as she claps him on the shoulder and walks into the ships laboratory. Inside, a blur of movement as the high speed amphibian ,Professor Mordin Solus blinks from workstation to workstation humming cheerfully to himself.

'VeryniceshipCommanderAIunexp ectedCerberusmoredesperateth anIthought.' he breaks his sentence looking at the commander before forcing himself to slow down and proceeds at a slightly more audible pace. 'Very nice laboratory you have provided me with, the samples you have recovered, astounding. definitely collector work have seen similar engineering before. Not dissimilar to plague, hypothesis correct. EDI very helpful, complained a bit when I removed bugs in room, returned them all though quite sophisticated very impressed. Walls have ears. Can I help you Commander?'

'I'm just here to see how you are doing, you sound like everything is in order.'

'Oh yes plenty of work already have everything I need, all necessary requisitions have been placed through EDI very helpful I shall be busy for next few days then require time for samples to mature, Newternian biotech offers most promising solution. Cup of tea?'

'No thanks Professor.'

The Professor was already back to his work blurring between consoles. Shepard silently took her leave and returned to the the hold to practice her biotics. She would need it to survive the next mission.

* * *

'Commander, you here?' he looked around the large room trying to catch a glimpse of the commander.

Shepard dropped from the roof, pulling herself up as she was about to hit the floor she landed perfectly. 'Jacob. You ready to try out your new amp?'

'Yes ma'am.' The surprised marine stood to attention.

'At ease soldier, I need respect, not blind obedience. Lets start with low powered throws to get warmed up.'

The pair of them moved to opposite ends of the room, well away from the walls and any cargo present. Jacob moved first using a basic balled throw, Jane caught the move redirecting the pulse back towards Jacob who responded by absorbing the hit into his own biotic barriers and using the energy to throw another pulse. For minutes the two of them traded blows blocking or redirecting the direct biotic pulse in various ways and testing the basic functionality of their amps under a variety of circumstances.

Jane caught the last pulse and let it dissipate. 'You good Jacob?'

'Just warming up Commander.'

'Good, first one to touch the ceiling loses.'

'If you insist.'

With that Jacob looses a powerful lift pulse at the Commander, Jane doesn't even attempt to block the pulse and focuses her own biotics into a directed gravity field around her. The deck plating groans even as the artificial gravity projectors hit their limits and shut down for their own protection. The lift pulse hits the commander, barely even registering against her defensive field. She releases her concentration, the field should last for quite a while before needing a recharge, her stronger cybernetic construction allows her to apply far more force to her body than she ever did before. She responded as if her body was moving through molasses, slowly gathering and propelling an area lift. Jacob registered the movements for what they were, pushing himself off the ground and over near the far wall preparing to give himself enough time to respond and deflect the inevitable attack. Shepard finished the bolt propelling it across the cargo bay, it moved slowly, far slower than a normal biotic attack. Jacob changed tack, using his prepared pull to lob himself clear over the Commanders location in the middle of the hold. Firing off a pair of pulls during his flight in an attempt to weaken the defensive field before landing on the far side of the hold, watching as the lift field detonated, blinking out the gravity over a fifteen meter radius. The Comander was already reacting to Jacobs mobility, preparing her own homing pull, instead of the Crowd control lift she used earlier, the dissipated defensive field allowed her to move far faster than she did the first time. She launched the bolt at a prepared Jacob, he caught and redirected the potent attack fluidly, following up with his own smaller, faster throw bolt. Jane, her directed gravity field still powerful enough to resist each of the attacks prepared to deflect the pull bolt. Momentarily before it reached her the fields intersected, detonating one another and blasting the rogue clear across the room. Jane landed with a crash barely maintaining enough cohesion to defect an incoming pull pulse to a safe distance.

Jacob pressed his advantage, throwing multiple weak quick pulses to prevent Shepard from recovering completely, if she managed to produce another heavy defensive field he'd have a hard time breaking it. Jane let a pair of the weak pull pulses hit her as she gathered her wits. As Jacob closed to get a finisher in she took advantage of her momentary weightlessness and propelled herself across the room landing easily on the far wall before reinstating her personal gravity and falling to the floor lightly.

Each of the combatants was tired and worn from the challenge and a good many of the crew had lined up along the windows overlooking the hold. Joker was running odds, currently it was almost even. Many of the crew placed blind faith in Shepard, while those that knew him believed Jacob to be the stronger biotic. 'Operative Lawson, care to place a bet?'

'I think I'll pass Joker. This competition is far from over and they're both performing far better than I thought possible.'

'Yeah the commander must have gone up a few levels since I last saw her and odds on she gave Jacob her old bio-amp, Savant. Cost her a pretty penny but it was worth it.'

The pair of them watched as the combatants traded light blows, feeling out each others defenses. Jane threw off a homing lift followed by a pull while Jacob countered with a pulsed push, deflecting both attacks into the center of the hold.

'EDI are you recording this?'

'Affirmative operative Lawson, the commander is considerably more powerful than Operative Taylor and is capable of handling greater physical stresses but Jacob is a better biotic and more versed in maneuvers, counters and is being far more efficient in his power. Joker I would like to place 150 credits on Operative Taylor to win the match.'

'150 credits on Jacob from EDI. This just keeps getting more interesting.'

Below them Shepard leapt over one of Jacob's pulses and got caught in the face with a throw, barely able to avoid careening into the roof by focusing a local gravity field around herself. Landing heavily with a thud, artificial gravity emitters straining to prevent damage to the floor Jane opened up with a series of light homing attacks towards her adversary. Deftly blocking and dodging, Jacob maneuvers and redirects most of the attacks,altering their trajectory, spin and speed before following up with a few short sharp pulses of his own and finishing his response with a momentary stasis field. Jane had only just enough time to realize what the former marine was doing before it hit, freezing her in place and stopping her from generating another defensive gravity field. The stasis subsided after barely a second, just in time for the first of the redirected pulses to start impacting. The initial pull pulses lifted Jane's feet off the ground while each successive pulse pulled her higher and higher into the air. She kept her bearings and began to focus local gravity around her to pull herself back to the hull only to be impacted by Jacobs final attack, a rotational push. The Rogue spun wildly, all bearings lost she finished altering local gravity, slamming into the roof and sliding into the corner.

Joker quite happily declared the match as the observation level degenerated into applause. Jane stood in her corner of the hold, gradually letting the ships gravity take hold of her and landing on the ground with a feather touch. As Miranda and Joker walked onto the deck she straightened, panting heavily as was Jacob. 'Impressive display commander, you should know that EDI recorded the entire fight as well as your technique. You did well yourself Jacob, Shepard's new amp is far more powerful than even a Savant, it was designed specifically for her unusual biology.'

'Thanks, good game Commander.'

'Good game Jacob. Its been a long time since I've been able to spar like that, there wasn't enough room on the original Normandy and its strange getting used to this new power.'

'You seem to favor personal gravity based maneuvers commander instead of more traditional combat biotics.'

'A byproduct of my misspent youth and Infiltrator training. I spent a lot of time when I was young on the run for whatever reason, once I got a working bio amp I taught myself mobility. There is nothing quite like hopping from arcology to arcology through the skies of LA or London. It's far more useful to an Infiltrator than traditional biotics. We like to cheat far too much to attempt a straight up fight and mobility lets us do that.' She snorted 'One of my classmates in N7 was a low grade kinetic, limeblood, kept on pulling the pins on enemy grenades. She almost never had to get involved in a straight up fight.'

'Your cut Commander.'

'Thank you Joker, what was the take?'

'Almost 1500 credits. The odds were almost one to one, we made quite a tidy profit. Jacob.' The dersite passed the man a credit transfer chip for his cut.

'Commander, I must object to having the crew gamble on training exercises.'

'It helps them blow off steam Miranda. Joker's even registered with the Prospitan gambling board, eighty percent of the profit goes back to the competitors and EDI records the whole thing on every possible bandwidth with orders to act as referee. It won't get out of hand and it helps us push ourselves harder.'

'If you insist Commander but if possible could you schedule future events during downtime, the crew became distinctly... distracted, on this occasion.'

In the background there was a murmuring among the crew watching a multispectrum replay of the fight, most stunned by the readings from the gravitational sensors. Overlaying mass effect field over the combatants. Jacob covered in the thin film of his barriers, deflecting incoming attacks with brief measured bursts of force while the commander was surrounded in a massive mass effect field, leaking energy everywhere.

Jacob chose this moment to take his leave herding the admiring crew out of the hanger, closely followed by Joker returning to his customary place in the cockpit.

'Miranda, I received a delivery today, you might find these useful.' Jane handed over the cachpalouge card with twin Spectre master pistols and printed a data crystal containing the code for all of her best tech attacks. Miranda deployed the pistols, admiring their craftsmanship and numerous accessories, stowing them in her strife deck she loaded the data crystal into her own omnitool.

'These are some of the best viruses and worms I developed during the Geth war, horrendously effective against any nonsapient machine and reasonably effective against even the cleverer ones. You should find them useful. We move on archangel in sixteen hours, get used to the programs and pack for heavy warfare. I suggest you spar with EDI.'

'Understood Commander.'

'EDI could you inform Jacob about the next mission.'

* * *

'Affirmative Commander, Signing you out.'

'Commander, the Blue Suns guard is expecting you. He believes his superiors informed him of your party and your status as problem solvers.'

'Thank you EDI'

Shepard rounded the corner to find a small squad of Blue Suns guards standing over a heavily armored defenestrated wall. 'You the problem solvers?'

'Yeah, heard you've got a bit of trouble with a turian.'

'You could say that, he's got trouble with us more like it. That's what you're here for.'

The guard appraised the team, clearly dressed for trouble they were each loaded down with armor. Miranda and Jane each sporting profoundly expensive medium suits while Jacob cut an imposing figure in a suit of Derse made heavy armor. The guards shifted uneasily.

'Ha, the reputation alone is worth the job. You're only paying enough for the kinds of kids who should be hunting rats in basements, they aren't the ones you send to kill a boss. We are.'

'Have fun.'

The wall opened and the team dropped through to reach the other side.

'150 creds they're dead in the first ten minutes.'

'Ye of little faith, 200 that they're gone in one.'

* * *

'You're on.'

'Finally Someone who looks like they can fight.'

The Batarian marshaling officer appraised the group with four coolly calculating eyes as they emerged on the other side of the wall.

'Any special talents.'

'Biotics, all three of us.'

The batarian checked his omni-tool registering their signatures. 'Hmm, three human biotics in the same place, you'll need all of your tricks. Our enemy, Archangel, Turian, a sniper with an uncanny talent for destruction. He's sequestered these in these old abandoned towers, no atmosphere and high gravity from from the eezo refineries. His MO is to lurk in his given tower an take pot shots at us. He's extremely accurate and usually targets equipment, causing it to fail catastrophically. Killing for more than a man with a rifle should be able to. As biotics you should be able to avoid that problem and reach him or at least pin the bastard down for long enough for our regulars to reach him. Your job is to pin him down and stop him escaping, he uses fenestrated panes to quickly skip from tower to tower. That's our main problem, just occupy him for long enough for us to finish the job.'

A string of particularly colorful cursing erupted behind the officer. 'Alright, he's moved again, report to Sargent Kathka at the third barricade, he directs the assaults and pray to your gods that you don't get hit.'

The trio advanced through the mercenary camp passing and surveying the mercenary outfits. In all there were almost three hundred mercenaries of varying quality. Eclipse was mainly comprised of speedy Salarians and had a decent number of Asari biotics to disrupt enemy forces. All were training their standard combat biotics, tactics which would prove poor against a lone gunman. In the back of their enclave was rack after rack of light mechs and a small collection of heavier assault mechs. Most were stock but a good number were being converted to the more dangerous 'mouse' configuration to act as shock troopers. Jane took the opportunity to slip a number of small transponders into the collection of mouse parts the mercenaries were using for their conversions while palming unattended equipment. The next team was the Blood Pack, primarily comprised of the vicious and inexperienced vorcha, few of whom had taken advantage of longevity therapy, each team lead by an older krogan. The krogan commanders and sergeants were gathered around a table debating the finer points of strategy. The Krogan Commander an immense creature, scars covering every visible piece of skin slouched against a wall polishing his weapon, a BH109 plasma rifle, waiting until his subordinates had made up their mind. The third camp contained the blue suns, a company mainly comprised of the more humanoid races. Their enclave was filled with a selection of miscellaneous humanoids dressed in the distinctive blue armor of the company. Heads of various colors were bent in concentration as their commander gave them a briefing on the new plan of attack. The team watched intently as the leader, a Troll blue blood instructed his soldiers of the plan. 'Archangel has moved to position G17, a small loft on the pinnacle, we estimated that this was one of his nexus points and we've got transit dampeners threaded all through that area. He won't be escaping this time. We've had team of freelancer biotics sign up recently, problem solvers, not like those Eclipse battle biotics. Their job along with the other freelancers is to provide a distraction. We send them up in hover barges, with the freelancers. We've armored and shielded them but Arcangel will probably take out the barges again with a lucky shot. The problem solvers go mobile from there and keep the bastard occupied. Next we begin a layered assault, Eclipse go first, they plan to use their mobile biotics to drop in an armored wall and use it to deploy their mechs. Blood Pack provide seconds Garm has got the Vorcha cutting up the levels of the spire, they'll start a secondary assault from beneath. We come in last, once the Eclipse have him pinned and the pack get him surrounded we use the dropships to come in from above. Assuming the others keep him busy he shouldn't notice us, the gunships lead the charge. Report to your sergeants for deployment. Dismissed.' The crowd chorused their understanding before efficiently moving out and to the waiting dropships.

'You must be the biotics I've heard so much about.' The troll was immense, easily two meters tall and heavily built, his horns closely resembling those of Asian water buffalo adding further to his imposing figure. He moved heavily to the vehicle staging area. 'You heard the plan, of all the freelancers the three of you are the most likely to reach him. Once you get there spread out, catch the bastard in crossfire and wait for reinforcements, let Eclipse throw away their lives. If you survive I may have more work for you.' With that he left them in the staging area, a scarred Batarian, unarmored but wearing sergeants insignia worked on a heavy gunship, cigar clasped between his jaws.

The team approached cautiously. 'The biotics, excellent.' The grease stained man kept working, his top pair of eyes looking up at the newcomers. 'The barges and other freelancers are over there, check your gear and form up. Varrak wants his gunship in shape for the assault. You know the plan?'

Jacob nodded, playing the leader while Jane took the time to leave a few surprises on nearby vehicles.

* * *

'Good, use the fodder as shields. Stay in cover and stay mobile. He can and will kill you very, very easily if he even has a clue where you are. Must be using a Specter rifle, this is the third time I've had to repair this damn gunship. You've been warned.' Smoke erupted from a component. 'Graaa, get moving, its time to go.'

The shielded, armored hover barge moved slowly through the abandoned towers, shields flaring slightly as the furnaces belched charged particles towards them. Among the crowd of freelancers, each a bastion of bravado and inexperience the team did their best to fit in with the crowd, mimicking their movements and standing with people wearing similar armor. Each member trying to do their best to make themselves a less likely target. In the end it was all in vain, as the barge rounded the corner to the archangels eyrie a hyperkinetic slug tore through the civilian grade shielding and buried itself into the armored hull plating. One of the mass effect hover generators failed, eezo lanced out by the single lucky round. A second hit struck the emergency Skaiatech hover engine giving the freelancers a moment of panic before the barge spiraled out of control. Jane, Miranda and Jacob threw themselves clear of the doomed barge and its passengers as it careened into the second, disabling it and plowing into the tower behind them. For a moment nothing happened. An eruption of flame blasted out of the rubble as a freelancer's payload of grenades detonated. Throwing the remains of the barge out of the tower and into the third and final transport.

'It appears the abilities of Arcangel were understated.'

A cauliflower of flame erupted as the third barge's fusion power supply overloaded.

'You have a gift for understatement Miranda. We need to make contact as quickly a possible, spread out move quickly.'

Shepard leapt across the void, using her shields to nullify gravity and her biotics to generate quick jumps and leaving the operatives behind. Flitting between points the way she used to in her youth Jane covered the final kilometer to the eyrie in record time despite a few shots glancing off the edges of her barriers. She landed heavily against a wall outside and below the spire, scrambling out of the way quickly as a bolt tore through the hardened concrete. 'Hey, Tweety, mind if you put that thing down?!'

'What the?'

'Vakarian, if you're going to try to kill me at least become a better shot.'

'Shepard?'

* * *

The woman poked her head over the heavily barricaded window and looked at her old friend.

In a fortress stands a man, due to circumstances entirely of his own making he is now in over his head. He is here to protect the helpless and the innocent, or at lest give the strong and the corrupt a reason to fear the quiet shadows in a place which is little else but quiet shadows. His fortress was once a home, emptied by the same reasons he came to this place. The thugs and the vicious taking from those who could not protect themselves. For days he has ran and has fought the worst he could find, or for that matter could find him.

He has may interests, Justice, Peace, Harmony, Cold Dextrobeer, Precision targeting, Investigations, Calibrations, and hunting genocidal cyborgs. He uses the specibus _Precisionkind _and lives up to the ideal in everything he does. He is precise, efficient, and has a plan for everyone he meets. Though not necessarily everyone at once.

* * *

For many he has become a symbol of hope in this dark place and for others a symbol to fear, to many he is more than a man. He has gathered many names in his travels, Arcangel in various languages, the carapacians name him something different, a name they are afraid to even mention, to his friends he is Garrus Vakarian. There is only one person in the galaxy who would dare call him Tweety, then criticize his shooting.

'Aren't you meant to be dead?'

'Undead. Good to see you too scales. But we're about to get some company and unlike my associates they aren't the most cuddly bunch.'

Miranda and Jacob vaulted the walls from outside, weapons at the ready.

'You two know Garrus don't you? He helped me save the galaxy a while back.'

'Its an honor Mr Vakarian.'

'It's Garrus, really, or Arcangel if you prefer, I like that one. Shepard, what have you gotten yourself involved in this time?

'Garrus, I need your help to save the galaxy.'

'Again? Shit Commander can't it stay saved?'

'Apparently not, and I'm pretty sure that the gods said the same thing about Earth.'

'Don't you bring your primitive religion into this commander, the Carapacians are bad enough. shit... whats our next move?' The tired Turian slouches into his seat.

'Three hundred mercenaries, nearly 150 mechs and a Krogan with a plasma cannon.'

He closes his eyes and sighs slowly. 'Business as usual then?'

'Business as usual.'

'Well lets not keep them waiting, we've got biotics approaching from the east.' The turian stands and brings his rifle to bear on a tower, now vacant, standing to the east. There was a stillness in the vacum of the fortified tower as a momentum increasing field flooded the room. A burst from the spectre master rifle sent a .5 gram slug towards the tower at almost two hundred thousand meters per second. The reinforced ceramic of the tower block posed little resistance to the ten megajoule round as it disintegrated into a two dimensional cloud of debris on contact, shearing the upper towers from the lower structure. As the tower fell in the magnified gravity of the eezo refineries another two slugs struck home, heat sinks ejected from the rifle, now little more than a cloud of vaporising metal impacting the ceiling before dissolving into metal vapor. Impacts on structural faults in the design of the tower fragmenting it into dozens of smaller fragments falling into the narrow chasms below.

'That'll slow them down but wont stop them. Prepare yourselves.'

Jacob and Miranda checked their weapons as blue flickers sparked in the chasms below. Shepard moved up with her own rifle squaring her stance, using her biotics to increase local momentum she fired round after round at the biotics below. Those who used cover poorly or faulted in their quick jumps fell quickly and suddenly as the antipersonal rounds tore through their shields and detonated against their armor. Garrus joined her, antistructure rounds tearing great chunks off the towers and interrupting the enemy quick jumps. The desperate mercenaries began leaping from falling block to block unable to make a clear path through the debris as round after round of armor piercing metal blasted through the falling masonry, obliterating mercenaries on contact. But still they came, leaping like a snow leopard on stalactites, the small army of biotics closed on the defenders. One of the biotics reached the edge of the debris field, making a desperate leap at the tower and narrowly escaping a kinetic round, landing fifty meters below the desperate defenders. In the moment before Jacob could lean out of the window to repel the boarder she deployed a prepared military defenestrated pane, hiding behind the back of the otherworldly portal as a swarm of Loki poured out from the Eclipse enclave towards the defenders.

'We've got mechs.' screamed Jacob over the comms. The vanguard extracted his shotgun from its specibus and began to repel the new wave of boarders. The mechs, to the mercenaries credit, were properly equipped for the assault, shields modified into gravitic manipulators allowed some units to simply walk up the wall while others fell upwards towards the defenders, their local gravity reversed. While Jacob skillfully thinned their numbers with his shotgun and biotics, propelling dozens off the wall, into the snipers line of fire or simply allowing them to drop into the void. Miranda a level lower and behind the gravitic reinforced fortifications used the marine's armor telemetry to paint her targets. Shilloutes of the machines, generated by her suit's VI, fell past her position of the inside of the building as she put her pistols to work, each armor peircing round passing through the directional shielding and reinforced concrete like a knife through butter, impacting on the encroaching machines outside the wall. The defenders fought valiantly but the swarm of machines began to overwhelm the even substantial volume of fire resisting them, allowing more and more biotics to land and deploy windows.

The reinforced army of bots began to crest the lip of the reinforced balcony, backed up by the dozen battle biotics who had survived reaching the tower unscathed, Jane fell back to the level below with Miranda while Garrus extracted his spectre assault rifle to cover Jacob, manhandling bots by the score.

Temporarally the fight become a two leveled affair. In the main pinnacle Jacob used his biotics and shotgun to great effect, charging the nearly unaware mechs, the force of the impacts cratering them into the walls as his heavy armor reinforced his already formidable biotic power. In comparison to the human's brutal mastery of unrestrained force and applied gravity Garrus was a model of restraint and precision. His rifle barking in three shot bursts, lancing the light Loki mechs through their primary microfusion generators and processors. Intermittently the under mounted omni fabricator flung tech grenades at groups of machines, disabling several at a time until Jacob could move in to rend the unfortunate machines to pieces. On the lower levels Jane and Miranda were using their heavy piercing weapons to lay waste to the approaching forces. Destroyed and disabled machines fell away from the tower almost as fast as they approached kinetic rounds scything through the concrete and lancing vital components of the machines, but they were accomplising their task. On the lower levels a Blood Pack transport 'docked' with the habitation spire, crushing through several walls and disgorging the mercenary company's distinctive horde of Vorcha fodder backed by their hulking Krogan sergeants. The eclipse were also taking advantage of the distraction their bots were providing, preparing to insert their final play into the tower eyire.

The final mech facing Garrus and Jacob disintegrated ,a sniper round from the floor below tearing it asunder as hostile sniper fire lanced into reinforced concrete, driving the warriors into cover.

'Jacob, Report.'

'We're out of bots but the blood pack just docked with the lower tower and during the fight Eclipse managed to insert snipers into the surrounding towers. We're pinned.' Another bolt tore into his cover, coming to a halt in the artificially massive concrete

'We move down, use the height advantage to take on the blood pack. Hold still.'

Jane materializing her shotgun gestured to Miranda, who extracted a pair of heavily modified Tempest SMG's. In the eyrie while sniper rounds continued to eat their way through the concrete blocks the two warriors clung to for cover, each waiting for help to come. The floor beneath Jacob a erupted in a barrage of slugs, tearing a neat silhouette around his body, the surprised vanguard falling to the level below closely followed by Garrus, a hole cleanly punched under his feet by the commander's shotgun.

'Old times Garrus?'

'Old times. Feels different without Wrex as backup.'

'I'm sure we'll see him again. We need to get moving, the Pack won't wait for ever.' The turian grabbed the density field generators from the walls and ceiling passing them to his comrades.

'We need to move fast, the Suns are probably going to make a landing on the tower and we don't want them to catch us.'

The Squad moved lower and lower through the tower, avoiding the empty lift shaft save for the time it took to throw a few drone mines into the deep void. Their progression was fast and simple, walls were removed through judicious use of biotics, shotguns or even in one case the body of the Krogan seargent of the Blood Pack advance guard. They approached the body of the krogan force, seismic telemetry reading horde gharging through the corridors several floors below.

StolenShadow began commanding SquadNormandy

SS: burst comms only. Jacob, Miranda, trap the corridor, prepare for a shock insert. Garrus and I will pin them down on the level.

Escaped Executive: Affirmative Commander.

The techs started fabricating multiple tech grenades, sequestering them through the corridor, preparing for the inevitable krogan assault. Jacob produced an assortment of his own incendiary and frag grenades before setting up heavy cover at the stairs. The soldier produced the density field generators from earlier, affixing them to the walls and floor, making the concrete structure normally permeable to even light small arms fire into an effective barrier against the inevitable storm of gunfire.

Their hardsuit sensors registered the encroaching horde as Jacob and Miranda retreated to the floor above and Jane and Garrus took their positions on the far side of the tower. Awaiting the red horde.

The first vorcha crested the stairs, closely followed by his krogan sergeant and rest of the Blood Pack point squad, clearly unaware of the fate of the advance guard the soldiers sprinted past the commander's position making their best time for the top of the tower.

SS: Advance elements moving up, dispose of them.

A few moments later a shock quaked through the building as the unfortunate krogan was slammed through the habitation wall, spiraling into the unforgiving vacuum sans helmet. That got the attention of the horde, they poured up the stairs dozens at a time, making for the stairs across the building to another route to the next level. They didn't notice the snipers until too late Jane and Garrus each targeted their rifle at the horde approaching in almost single file down the corridor, hidden as they were by a wall of plastic. The opening volley cut the unfortunate leaders down, the Armour piercing rounds causing immense damage as the hydraulic shock caused by the bullets tore unfortunate mercenaries asunder. Almost reflexively the survivors took cover behind pillars and any other available cover deploying mass increasers from their sylladeces to protect themselves from the incoming fire. The mercenaries placed themselves in predictable positions as bolts of death thundered down the corridor. Detonating the hardened cover but just barely sparing the mercenaries hiding behind it.

SS: Phase 2.

In response half of the tech grenades detonated blasting fire, shrapnel, sensor obstructing smoke and flames through the building. From outside the building it appeared that the entire level had erupted outwards, all of the windows were clouded while light flashed in all directions as Miranda's sabotage mines worked their magic on the enemy weapons.

For a moment it was dark, the blue glow of the mass fortifiers died with the sabotage, while the dense smoke almost obscured the dull red glow of heat sinks stubbornly refusing to eject.

A series of pin sized holes traced themselves in the ceiling, mercenaries moving to cover the position. No one expected the krogan lieutenant to be knifed in the back, his attacker fading back into the shadows, nor did they expect the ceiling above their densest point of cover to disintegrate in a small focused warp field. Miranda dropped into the small group of surprised Mercenaries. The Sentinel had deployed her own personal tech armor. Thin sheets of carbonan reinforced silica were further reinforced and suspended by her shield projectors while biotic barriers prevented all but the best shots from even reaching those secondary defenses. The glowing woman quickly went to work, dispatching her victims with her twin pistols before dispatching a pair of remote laser telemetry drones. Pinning themselves to the walls the drones targeted nearby organics and element zero signatures broadcasting their locations for the world to see. Garrus took this as his cue, finally having good targeting and his opponents in disarray his sniper rifle barked a slow beat. Each bolt transfixing one or more members of the Blood Pack, passing through both walls and bodies with ease.

The Pack was in disarray, their strongest fighters were dead, assassinated in the darkness. The golden Sentinel laid waste to defenseless mercenaries, quickly whittling down even the strongest krogan with sustained fire and keeping their weapons useless and their shields down. At the same time the damned sniper, Arcangel, slaughtered them the same way he had always done. The battle looked grim for the Pack but the tide turned as the door to the stairs slid open and Garm the immense Krogan leader heading the rearguard of the most battle hardened vorcha and most experienced krogan warriors. The rear guard poured into the chaos of the level, venting the accumulated smoke into the vacuum outside and providing heavily armed reinforcements to the beleaguered soldiers. Miranda was driven back as Garm's plasma cannon barked in her direction, atomizing the structural pillar and two walls between them the beam of unimaginably hot fusion plasma contacted and detonated her tech armor. The kinetic pulse generated throwing the woman back into cover momentarally and saving her life as the beam died. Immediately a kinetic bolt tore through the structure in counterfire, tearing through masonry, passing through the shields and the body of the krogan leader. If Garm noticed the hit he gave no sign, the wound caused by the railgun closing rapidly. He reoriented his rifle with the desperate sniper, unleashing a beam of destruction which passed cleanly through the building, momentarily stopped by the eezo reinforced barricade before passing cleanly through the sniper's nest and through the outer wall, illuminating the vacuum beyond with a gout of fusion fire. That momentary halt saved Garrus's life, the turian scrambling aside escaping into the next room, the connecting wall having been demolished by the previous firefight. Miranda and Garrus found themselves in what once was someones home, multiple someones, the walls between the apartments breached by the Blood Pack troopers, many of which were using the room as cover. Caught offguard the two techs detonated the secondary tech mines laced throughout the room, taking the fight to the mercenaries before the more experienced reinforcements could corner them. In the corridor entrance Garm was attempting to use his plasma cannon to eliminate the two visable warriors, aiming it at their location through the structure of the building. Much to his chagrin he was being accosted by a ghost, from the shadows biotic fields were being produced from nowhere, the charged smoke was still thick enough to interfere with his suit's sensor suite and multiple omniblades were lodged in places on a normal krogan would have housed nerve clusters and vital arteries. To Garm, a top echeladder warlord with centuries of experience they were little more than annoyances, his body reshaped over the centuries through furious regeneration virtually nothing was where it was supposed to be and scar tissue was threaded throughout his body. His soldiers were not as lucky, the ghost had lodged blades expertly, disabling many of his soldiers in the fastest method possible, often aiming for nerves as opposed to kills, stopping them from fighting. His gun arm had been the recipient of such attentions, even his staggering regenerative abilities could not remove the blade embedded in his arm. Tearing the blade loose with his teeth, his arm rapidly regaining feeling he fired his plasma cannon towards where his troops were battling arcangel. In the last instant his gun was pushed aside incinerating half a dozen of his best troops. Before him stood the one of the human biotics from earlier, one of the smaller females, her features obscured by the partially functioning tactical cloak and her other arm embedding yet another silica blade into his body, aiming for an artery no longer there.

'Good trick human!'

The Krogan Leader kicked the much smaller woman driving her down the corridor. Jane, discarding stealth allowed he cloak to deactivate and caught herself with her biotics before she passed the twenty five meter mark, her biotic signature lit up on the sensors of every remaining mercenary, all not currently occupied began to charge down the corridor at the seemingly defenseless woman.

SS: Jacob, phase three.

The secondary mines detonated, drenching the level of the tower in thermal and electromagnetic radiation, shorting out the mercenaries shields and weapons as well as momentarily deactivating Garm's fearsome plasma cannon. The mercenaries charging Jane found themselves suddenly without traction as the ceiling above them began to buckle, biotic energy crackling around the walls and ceiling tell tale cherenkov radiation showing the unstable field. With a burst of debris and chaos Jacob crashed onto the level, crushing several vorcha with his dynamic entry. With a fluid movement the vanguard loosed his shotgun and let loose at the conveniently clustered mercenaries.

Jacob: we have eclipse mechs backed by troopers closing from the eyrie, we need to get out of here.

SS:Withdraw people, make for the lift shaft. We need to take out Garm, he's top level and holding the blood pack together, Take him out and his men won't chase us.

Jacob: Will do commander.

The plasma cannon barked, the beam of destruction tore down the corridor vaporizing unfortunate mercenaries and compromising the armor of the humans. Jane cloaked an made for Garm, the dust kicked up by the blast masking her presence until she was close enough to engage the mercenary hand to hand. Jacob took cover, disposing of the few vorcha that strayed too close as Jane began to occupy the immense Krogan. As she engaged the man Jacob moved out of cover and charged at full strength. The impact blasting the krogan through a nearby wall and into yet another apartment. Jacob pulled his shotgun on target unleashing several shots into the ancient krogan, each hit inflicting serous wounds, enough to kill a lesser combatant but the Krogan was not yet out of the fight, or for that matter even slowed down. Flesh crawling as the wounds closed over the monstrous mercenary made for Jacob, a kick sending the human through a concrete support pillar and into an unlucky lieutenant. Aiming his cannon Garm felt the gravity shift around him as the female human decloaked, biotic distortions coursing around her body, Garm was thrown into the outer wall as the force intensified, rapidly overpowering the already heavy gravity in the tower and continuing to grow. The male disposed of the lieutenant in time to come to the aid of his comrade, adding furthur force to pin the war leader to the wall, the force causing the reinforced structure to give but not enough to immobilise the immense mercenary. Attempting to aim his cannon the krogan let of a burst of plasma, disintegrating a nearby chunk of the structure and badly searing Jacob even through his armor.

From above assault cannon rounds began to rain through the ceiling, the eclipse heavy mechs clearly having gotten close enough to the combat to be able to settle old scores, a heavy round tore through a vorca, while others struck the shields of the human combatants. In the chaos Garrus and miranda barreled through the hole opened by one of Garm's misaimed blasts, making best speed for the lift. Garm Struggling against the power of the biotics and untroubled by the mass accelerator fire tried to aim again, badly missing the two techs and incinerating yet another unfortunate vorcha trooper. Jacob and Jane abandoned the enraged krogan, the fields they had generated should last for several minutes or until they were dispelled by biotics or technology. Jacob opened the lift door with his shotgun, blowing a neat hole large enough for even his heavily armored form. throwing himself down the lift the rest of the squad following, Garrus the last one to reach the hole leapt backwards through the hole, rifle appearing in his hands, a final anti-personal round at maximum power tore towards Garm,tearing into the krogan's chest and exploding through his back. The round tore through the wall, providing the final insult to the abused structure it fell apart, Garm going with it tumbled into the void of space, shield-less and with his armor in tatters the Krogan fell towards the furnaces far below, plasma cannon clasped in his hand and an immense wound torn in his back.

'One'

PrecisionSleuth: There's a garage on fifteen levels down, that's where we need to get.

StolenShadow: Acknowledged. EDI, hack the mechs keep the mercenaries occupied.

The falling quartet reached the garage level, biotics bulling themselves to a halt and Garrus engaging his fall arrest modulator. Quickly they moved into the vacant garage, they were below the place the pack had docked and had free access to the outside. Garrus reached into a compartment in his armor and extracted a captchalogue card materializing a Citadel Security cruiser.

'Jacob, you drive I'm expecting company.'

Jacob scrambled into the pilots seat while the others took up position in the rear of the vehicle, canopy down to afford them clear lines of fire. The engine started, emitting a faint light underneath the vehicle as the fabricators sprung into action, sheet after sheet of armor rose into the air ready to protect the passengers. Springing of the ground the cruiser took off heading along the tumultuous route back to the almost empty mercenary enclave. With a motion Garrus sent a signal to the remaining charges on the floor that they had fought the Pack, detonating demolition charges on any remaining structural supports and killing any mercenaries too foolish to escape while they had the chance. Slowly the top of the building began to topple, even in the local enhanced gravity. The squad watched as the falling building revealed the Blue Suns assault force, backstabbing the few eclipse mercenaries standing guard over the deployment window.

'We've got company.' Garrus takes aim at the lead gunship, an older model with minimal skaiatech. The ablative plating shifted aside allowing Garrus to take the shot unimpeded. The turian opened fire on the gunship the vehicle shield reinforced him against the recoil, a ten megawatt round struck the towards his unfortunate victim, passing through the primary generator scattering the eezo core. The gunship stuttered, listing sideways into a nearby troop transport crashing through it plating before dragging it down onto the rapidly collapsing building, crushing the eyrie and damaging the deployment window, sealing the fate of the unfortunate mercenaries.

The Blue Suns, immediate objective taken care of by Garrus's impromptu demolition work and numbers thinned by another extremely lucky shot dispatched their gunships after the fleeing squad. Mass accelerator rounds hounded the escaping cruiser many striking the ablative armor, shattering ceramic sheets as the hits were deflected, replacements sliding into place almost instantly.

'EDI, see if you can patch Joker into the cruiser. Jacob until Joker takes over keep us in cover, if those gunships catch us we're done for.'

The cruiser rounds the corner of another tower, heading with gravity down towards the refineries and the cover provided by the shorter structures. The Blue suns gunships easily follow the agents tracking their craft's eezo signature and splitting up to cover the primary escape routes. Hiding from the hunting mercenaries the cruiser pressed itself against one of the taller buildings, the mass of the structure should prevent the gunships from using proper anti materiel weaponry against the resiliently armored cruiser.

Joker started pestering SquadNomandy

Joker: Commander, up to your old fun and games. Garrus good to see you, who have you managed to piss off this time.

PS: Everybody.

Joker: And now its time to bail you out.

PS: If you could spare the time from your... enthralling entertainment.

Joker: No need, for that scales. If two of those gunships catches you you're toast. I'm going to need you to block them. You think you can manage that.

PS: Consider it done.

SS: Good to go?

Joker: Oh yes.

The craft lifted off the wall for a moment, controlled by remote through Jane's connection to the Normandy as joker prepared for some truly daredevil flying.

Joker: Mark.

Garrus aimed and fired, a huge chunk of concrete tore itself off a nearby building, successive hits fragmenting the pieces into smaller and smaller chunks. As the shards descended towards the closest of the gunships the cruiser sped out, passing directly into the line of fire of a second gunship Jane and Jacob opened fire, mass accellerator rounds impacting the shields of the gunship. Miranda was furiously launching sabotage and overload grenades at the hovering war machine, disabling its primary weapons and shorting out its fore shields. The pilot, sensing his impending doom, fired off the remainder of his weapons, the missile pods emptying themselves at the a craft not designed to take fire from anything larger than small arms. Before an anti material sniper round tore through the nose armor of his craft and put an end to his efforts.

SS: Biotics, capture and redirect.

In a synchronised movement the three biotics held the carriers of impending doom still before throwing them towards where the second gunship dodged falling debris. Garrus sensing the opportunity stopped dropping masonry on the beleaguered gunship, taking aim and putting a hyperkinetic proton round through one of the ships rear stabilizers. The gunship barely noticed the hit, it merely knocked out a relatively insignificant stabilizer. The pilot noticed the incoming missiles too late, attempting to dodge out of the way the rear stabilizers could not handle the strain, the gunship moved too sluggishly and the first missile impacted the port missile pod, successive missiles crashing into the vessel and detonating. Before the shields finally lost their strength the unfortunate gunship had bounced from one explosion after another managing to collect every explosive projectile which came its way before the final cluster of projectiles impacted amidships obliterating the unfortunate vehicle.

The cruiser took off, its immediate assailants dealt with it flew quickly through the narrow gaps between the buildings, heading towards the mercenary enclave. Joker to his credit was piloting the ship just as well as he would have had he been there in person. They sped down the straights and took the corners with perfect lines, the rear projected armor plates passing within millimeters of the buildings. The final blue suns gunship piloted by Varrak himself traced the cruiser through the abandoned city tracking its signature through the buildings and firing his twin assault cannons at the buildings but their damned pilot kept the craft just deep enough in cover to dampen the slugs to irrelevancy.

Joker: we need to go up, do what you can to keep the that gunship busy.

With that the cruiser rose almost vertically, course wavering almost perfectly to avoid the incoming fire but there was only so much even the galaxy's best pilot could do when the enemy uses railguns. On cue the passengers opened fire on the perusing gunship. Jane and Garrus threw anti materiel rounds with reckless abandon while Jacob used his assault rifle, for all the good it would do against the ridiculously armed chunk of metal the blue suns leader was piloting. For Varrak it seemed too easy the small cruiser was dwarfed by the size of his gunship and the small arms his prey were using were almost completely unable to damage his vessel. Almost. Taking no chances he fired some of his payload of missiles. Each missile was a marvel of engineering, powered by a small fusion rocket and carrying a small fullerened antimatter charge in a tiny lump of explosive. Each missile was quite capable of demolishing even quite large buildings and small enough to avoid even some of the most skillful counter fire. Spotting the incoming missile Miranda stowed her weapons and prepared a special tech grenade. The schematics and weapons information she had gathered during a long career for Cerberus married to the most virulent of the commander's hacking routines packaged into a single single shot broadcast device spun towards the missiles, propelled by Miranda's substantial biotic skill. The small device triggered itself in the center of the missile cluster affecting four of the six demolition charges. The four missiles split up tracing different vectors at a reflex angle to their initial heading before turning towards their originator. One of the remaining missiles was caught in counterfire by Jane, detonating in an immense flash of light, catching its companion in the same blast, triggering the antimatter laced explosive and blinding the crew of the cruiser. Varrak spotted the missiles curving off path in time to set autotargeting to destroy them before the two remaining ones blinded him with their detonation. The redirected missiles curved around the gunship, one impacted a nearby building, Miranda's virus lacking avoidance algorithms vaporizing great chunks of structure while a second and third were detonated by counterfire by the gunship's autocannons. As the fourth missile approached the third the ship and the starboard autocannon attempted to track it Garrus fired a proton round blindly towards the gunship. The round struck the articulation of the autocannon fusing the elevation routines a moment before it could open fire. Within moments the missile closed into trigger range and detonated just outside its heavy shields. The blast was not enough to destroy the gunship but it carried enough force to overheat one of the remaining missile racks, shorting the missiles fusion engine causing it to fire uncontrollably, dooming the vehicle to a fiery death as fusion plasma ignited fires in the missile pod, spun the craft uncontrollably and slowly but surely heated the nearby antimatter explosives past their stability point.

Joker sped the cruiser away from the mortally wounded gunship and sped towards the mercenary enclave as the crew in the back took a breather.

'I see you've still got your talent for destruction Garrus.'

The nova of the antimatter charges losing containment lit up the abandoned buildings behind them.

'It's proven useful. Two.'

'That it has. Were about to enter the mercenary enclave, expect Blue Suns, they've probably taken the opportunity to dispose of their competitors. If were lucky we can catch them on the dropship. Extraction is a deployment window at the back of the camp. Get there then move for the Normandy.'

Jane accessed the cruiser telemetry and spotted a Blue Suns transport pass through the atmosphere barrier into the enclave.

SS: Joker, take care of that dropship on the way in and try to clean up as many troops as possible.

Joker: Rodger that.

The cruiser picked ups speed, funneling it's shield generators into a light mass field to provide temporary speed the ship hit the barrier in three seconds, immediately slowing as it hit the mass of the atmosphere. The squad threw themselves to terra firma quickly coming to combat position to find the remaining Eclipse and Blood Pack troopers in intense combat with the Blue Suns mercenaries arriving off the dropships. The cruiser swooped on the Suns, particle cannons tearing into the hull of the dropship and the flesh of the mercenaries, deadly at close distance, living the survivors in disarray before the tech armour detonated, throwing shards of carbonan reinforced silica into nearby mercenaries. The ship dropped to the ground, power circuits burned out by the sudden drastic stresses placed on the ship's frame.

'Its Arcangel. Kill him.'

The Salarian speaking was the red skinned leader of the local Eclipse mercenaries Jaroth, his head split in the middle as a shield piercing proton round barked from Garrus's rife.

'Three.'

The collective mercenaries took Jaroth's dying wish as their orders and the remainder of the eclipse began focusing on the squad while the Blue suns were occupied by the few remaining blood pack troopers who held their base during the assault.

The squad went to work, Jane restricted to conventional tactics by eclipse technology activated her own tech armor and focused on disabling the more powerful asari biotics through tactical use of tech mines and careful sniping, Miranda joined her, pistols largely useless against an entrenched foe tech grenades and warp pulses sowed chaos in the Eclipse ranks. Garrus continued his sniping, every now and then popping up to place a round through a number of mercenaries or to cause a cataclysmic chain reaction of destruction, flushing out targets and reshaping the battlefield to his liking. Jacob however rode the wave of chaos, charging from weak point to weak point on the enemy line, hitting those who had been disabled by tech mines and moving with a speed even the best of the eclipse could not hope to match.

The eclipse forces, depleted from their earlier battles and having trouble dealing with extra hostile fro the blue suns collapsed quickly, their final soldier slammed into a wall by Jacob. The squad moved further into the base, rushing from cover squaring off against the blue suns as they deployed out of yet another transport and rushed what remained of the Blood Pack. In the distance a white speck danced against the black of space moving erratically. Jane sighted it down her scope, before her was the form of a thin krogan, its distinctive hump minimized, it must have regenerated from immense damage recently and scraps of armor too large for it hung off its form. Its back was towards Jane but it rode on a plume of nuclear flame heading towards the enclave.

'Shit, its Garm. He regenerated and is on his way back.'

Garrus sighted in his rifle, sure enough the scarred but diminished form of the Blood pack leader was streaking towards the camp as astronomical speed.

'A nuclear rocket krogan, now I've seen everything. Let's wait for the Suns to notice him, use him as cover to escape.'

The squad waited in silence as the speck grew brighter in the distance, Garm closing to the trecherous blue suns even now killing his troops. Finally the suns notices the rocket krogan closing on their position turning the defense cannon of the transport they managed to wing him before her reached the atmospheric barrier into the hanger, veering off course Garm careened through the hanger wall smashing at sonic velocity like the Kool Aid Krogan scattering chunks of masonry in every direction and landing with a crash. Before the blue suns he stood, shards of omni-blade still sticking out of his body and what remained of his armor the spent fuel canister of his cannon ejected onto the floor as the krogan panted, breathing for the first time in ten minutes he pulled the trigger on his weapon. Dialed to ten, the plasma cannon generated an ommmminous hummmmmm as it charged to maximum power, the glow of doom warming it's barrel as local atmosphere was thrust into its fusion core. Garm depressed the trigger fully unleashing a beam of nuclear fire, scything through the blue suns transport and dozens of their troopers the krogan laughed with a dark gleam in his eye as they reevaluated him as the greatest local threat the plasma swept the room conveniently avoiding the squad, watching in horror as Garm purged the area from behind an empty Blue Suns dropship.

SS: on my mark sabotage, stasis and snipe.

Garm finished the last of the blue suns troopers with a grunt of satisfaction, there was nothing left of his unfortunate victims, not even ash.

SS: mark.

On her mark the squad acted, Harrus managed to get a shot through the krogan's hump attracting his attention and before miranda's sabotage grenade could take effect he fired the plasma cannon. The short pulse caught Garrus in the shoulder and face dropping the turian to the ground, smoke rose from Garrus' prone smouldering form. Stasis impacted the krogan freezing him momentarily but the ancient krogan easily over powered the human biotic through blood rage and muscle. Jacob charged but this time Garm was ready, catching the human in the face with his still armoured fist the raging krogan knocked the human to the ground, kicking the man for good measure, knocking him out through his armor. Miranda was on the beast almost as quickly but the krogan shook of the barrage of mass accelerator fire and barely noticed her warp attack before getting close enough to strike the woman smashing his fist into solar plexus and kicking her hard enough across the room for her to leave a sizable dent in the far wall.

'Its over now Arcangel, you're not coming back from that but there's no need to take risks.'

flesh crawling over the krogan's form as the most recent of the damage regenerated the barrel of the cannon began to glow and an ominous humm began to fill the room as the sabotage mine wore off. As he aimed the weapon at Arcangel, the faceplate of his helmet burned off, as well as most his armor Garm couldn't shake the thought that he had forgotten something. The blade sullenly protruding through his arm reminded him. Garm tried to kick at his invisible assailant but he was thrown solidly backwards with a biotic push smashing into a wall. Tearing the blade from his arm he aimed at arcangels position, the plasma would erase that part of the room from existence. An intense biotic singularity engulfed the space in front of him as the trigger was pulled, throwing the beam off, vaporizing the last of the eclipse barricades. Before him stood the human woman from before but something was different from before, a teal fire danced in her eyes, not the cherenkov glow emenated from biotics but something different. Jane reached for her most dangerous biotic attack, a reave bolt formed as she performed the mnemonic motions with the specialist life draining attack throwing it at the surprised Krogan. The reave bolt was like nothing he had ever seen, the teal fire of her eyes flowed through the bolt and as it closed on him it changed color turning a dark green as it impacted him. Garm lost feeling in his extremities, it wasn't reave. Reave hurt, more pain than you could imagine, this was something else, his regenerative powers were just feeding its power but it wouldn't relent, his fate was sealed. The human had discarded him, he would kill her but his limbs wouldn't respond, his cannon dropped to the ground with a clatter as the last light of consciousness faded from his mind.

Jane stood over the prone form of Garrus, her best friend but the bastard had to just go and get himself over his head, Idiot. This wasn't meant to happen he was meant to come with her to the collector base, with Tali and Joker and the others. The clouds had lied. There was one thing left to do, she remembered the words of the Seer, she took her helmet off and leant in, kissing the corpse on the lips something happened, she felt an energy pass through her, a teal fire flowed into Garrus's prone form the fire streaming from the paralyzed Garm. The Krogan, covered in dark green fire, flickering up his features and around his body, receding from his extremities towards his head. The fire enveloping Garm died, his cannon clattering to the ground the Krogan slumped and fell over, dead, without a wound. From the ground there was a cough, the teal fire enveloping Garrus had died away and the battered Turian was doubled over in a coughing fit. Jane hugged the man, crying as her old friend came back to the world of the living

* * *

In a tower in the on the moon of the dark planet a man opened his eyes for the first time, before him stood a tall carapacian with a golden ring.

'Heir of Chaos, welcome to the medium. We have much to discuss, but now you have more pressing issues. I will see you in your dreams.'

With that the form, already halfway out of bed collapsed, sleeping like an infant. The Black Queen tucked him in and left.

When he awoke there would be much to learn.

* * *

Codex:

Carbonan:

Galactic slang for carbon nanostructure. Carbonan is the galactic standard for material reinforcement and hardening. Grown by the tonne in null gravity factories carbonan is a vital ingredient in most variants of omni-gel, medi-gel and other fabrication base materials. Specialized carbonan structures are also found in most consumer electronics, microprocessor, omnitool and mass effect manipulation devices.

Fullerined antimatter:

antimatter is a notoriously unstable material, its storage and transport has been the bane of scientests and engineers for almost a millenia. Breakthroughs in carbonan manufacturing eventually produced the first viable way of transporting and handling quantities of antimatter under normal conditions. Fullerined antimatter is a single antihydrogen molecule encapsulated in a buckyspere of carbon atoms. For Sol races originally proposed by American theorist Buckminster Fuller fullerine is a family of geometric carbonan shapes. Fullerined antimatter is incredibly stable in normal conditions and appears as a black powder, however once local temperature surpasses a given limit the antihydrogen enclosed in the sphere recombines with the matter of its prison producing a distinctive nuclear explosion. Fullerined antimatter was in vogue as an explosive for a period of twenty years shortly after second contact. Due to its all or nothing nature it is rarely used in modern times, variable yield fusion explosives replacing it in most military applications.

Quick Jump:

The precursor to the specialized biotic charged commonly used by Vanguard class soldiers. During a quick jump a biotic in motion uses their abilities tor reduce their mass and increase their momentum in a given direction. The light mass field dissipates as more matter is added to it, as a result all quick jumps dissipate when the biotic intersects a solid object. In atmospheric conditions a jumper must maintain power and maintain the field to account for the mass of atmosphere. In non atmospheric conditions however once the field is setup it requires no maintenance to cover any given distance. Talented biotics can move to FTL speeds in moments and can can cover sizable distances with little effort. In a biotic charge the jumper uses an intentionally unstable field which produces tumultuous mass effect fields on deceleration, allowing a moment of accelerated timeframe and a gravitic pulse capable of stunning surprised enemies.

Kinetic barrier modulation:

Kinetic barriers, while extremely useful in their primary role for defense can easily be modified to interact with local gravity in a variety of ways. Essentially a directed version of the same projected gravity devices found in ME antigravity equipment. Kinetic barrier emitters can be modulated to provide personal antigravity, flight, power assist or to even reinforce the biotics of a user with a compatible bio amp. Apart from biotic reinforcement which is widespread, barrier modulation is rarely utilized in warzone applications, primarally due to cover being unavailable at the same time a soldiers shields are weakened. Non biotic techs and snipers however commonly use it to mimic biotic mobility to gain vantage on the battlefield. All commercial shields contain fall-arrest functions in case of accident.

Solid Reinforcement:

a standard modue built into most modern armor systems solid reinforcement systems use mass increasing fields to enhance the toughness of any materials the armor is pressed against as well as the structure of the armor itself. While the point of negative returns ir reached quite quickly this technology allows most modern armors to resist the forces imparted to them by even the more powerful mass effect weaponry. It also turns cover, which under normal conditions would be quite permeable to even pistol grade small arms into something quite capable of resisting even vehicle mounted weaponry. Advanced models can deactivate the field selectively to allow friendlies to return fire through solid and reinforced structures.

Citadel Security Cruiser:

Since the introduction of sylladex technology and other skaiatech into the citadel systems the prospective firepower of suspects had grown significantly. To deal with these escalating threats and allow their more inexperienced members to deal with the threat posed by hardened criminals the citadel government had contracted a joint venture between Skaia Systems and the turian manufacturer Elkoss Combine. The result was the new Csec police cruiser, a vehicle less a civilian personal transport and closer to a light gunship and armored personnel carrier. The vehicle features the best Skaian technology developed during the great war, the toughest alloys and skaiatech hover engines with articulated particle accelerators. While the eezo which would have gone into the lift generators and weapons was redistributed into the craft's shielding and what was at the time a revolutionary new ablative armor system. Using multiple fabricators secreted around the outer and inner hull the craft created sheets of carbonan reinforced ceramic which are held in place by the static shield generators. The design proved a success with the police force and it is a employment requirement that all Csec agents use modi capable of producing the vehicle whenever necessary.

Plasma Weapons:

Manufactured exclusively under license from Strohl Munitions, a subsidiary of Howard Industries, the B series plasma weapons are widely considered the most dangerous small arm in the known galaxy. While the citadel races considered plasma weapons both inefficient and having inferior energy output to widespread mass effect railguns the introduction of skaiatech made the production of directed plasma weaponry both feasible and portable. Unlike plasma weapons commonly featured in science fiction of most races, which fire bolts of plasma bound within a magnetic field which dissipates on contact with the target, releasing the thermal energy in the plasma. A process which would be dwarfed by the destructive potential of the magnetic shielding technology required. B series plasma weapons instead force either local or bottled gasses through a microfusion reactor and vent the waste particles in the form of a particle beam, essentially weaponising a fusion rocket. Control of the gravitational containment allows fine control of the plasma beam into almost any profile desired to deliver burning kinetic death with the greatest efficiency. Plasma weapons are highly illegal to use in planetary conditions due to the immense radioactive fallout generated when they activate. Effectively combining a directed energy weapon, a kinetic energy weapon and a high powered flamethrower, B series plasma weapons are possibly the most Krogan weapons in existence. Of the 150 weapons manufactured each year the vast majority find themselves into the armory of Krogan warlords.

(AN. I asked myself is there any reason that they shouldn't be able to build or use Schlock type plasma weapons given their stated tech proficiencies. The answer was no, fusion rockets are the main type of ship engine and combat gravitics are common in the form of both biotics and kinetic barriers. Several other concepts have been stolen as well. Thanks to Howard Taylor for the concept of the single most killy small arm in fictional existence. www schlockmercenary com)


	12. Chapter 8: Sylph

AN: there is swearing in this chapter. A LOT OF SWEARING. It's a homestuck fic so you should know what you are getting yourself into. But consider yourself warned.

* * *

Chapter 8: Sylph

Across Prospits golden afternoon thunder rang out. A blue lance of light streaks down the golden boulevard in front of the palace and into a small golden plate. Two more slam into place near the first as the plate rises above the crowd. At the zenith of its curve a fourth shot lands dead center shattering the plate into three identical pieces. The radio squarks.

The tiny prospitan in the ridiculous shoes answers his radio. He is amazed that shot was the greatest thing he has seen in his life you are the coolest hero no one could make a shot like that.

The radio squarks again.

He is sure that no one else could make a shot like that.

Squark.

A thimble?

Squark.

The little guy begs the crowd for a thimble. No one has one, Ms Paint? Hench? King? The little guy scrambles around asking everyone he can see.

'Stooge.'

The little man bows in reverence, the White Queen calling him from a balcony flings something in his direction, the thimble arcs through the air and bounces of the little guy's hand sending him scrambling after the golden bauble. Catching it he speaks into his radio.

Squark.

Almost where?

Squark.

That's a long way away.

Squark.

Alright. If you say so.

Squark.

The thimble flies into the air, tumbling gracelessly in the still air of Prospit.

* * *

Jane Shepard stands on a tower some distance away, she spent the last two minuites flying at her top speed to get a truly impressive shot at her next target.

'Don't worry Conrad I've done this dozens of times before.'

Squark.

'Pull.'

Through her sight the Spectre watched the thimble tumble into the air gracelessly, it spun and flipped in front of the expectant crowd of onlookers. Jane Steadied herself, slowly breathing out, tracing its movement, she pulled the trigger. Inside her rifle a miniature fabber siphoned a piece of omnigel into its chamber, shaping its components into a cylender with a small cavity in its back end, less than a fiftieth of a gram in weight and made of silicate ceramics. The mass effect field activates, increasing its mass a twohundredfold at the same time as gravitic projectors apply force to the slug. For a moment the slug accelerates slowly in the field reaching the end of the barrel in eight thousandths of a second it begins to leave the static mass effect field. From three hundred and seventy five meters per second the slug spontaneously accelerates as its mass drops. Three meters from the end of the barrel it has regained it original mass and is traveling at a ridiculous seventy five thousand meters per second. The astounding velocity of the round compresses the air in its path, heating it in the process. The heat is so intense outer shell electrons of the oxygen and nitrogen dissociate, covering the leading edge of the round in a 'cold' plasma. Even as the plasma eats away at the ceramic round it streaks towards the tumbling thimble. At two thousand meters the round has lost a fifth of its mass to the atmosphere, at five thousand two fifths, at seven thousand meters the last of the front end of the round is evaporated by the hot plasma, exposing the tiny cavity. Hot ions rush to fill this cavity, plasma builds up on the inside of the round, threatening to fracture the small slug through prodigious pressure. Before the hot plasma can evaporate the last of the slug, or the aerostatic pressure can fracture it's delicate structure it impacts with the base of the thimble.

The thimble explodes, base and walls blown out by the explosion of the target round while only the very edge of the small metal pot remains tumbling through the air with the collapsing trail of hot plasma leading to the shooter, seven and a half kilometers away.

For a moment all that could be heard was the soft tingle in the prospitan streets of the remains of the thimble landing on the golden cobbles.

The crowd erupted into a roar, sighting through her scopes Jane saw the White King give Balcony Stooge a hearty slap on the back sending the poor man sprawling before helping him up with a grin on his face.

Squark.

'See. Easy.'

Squark.

'Thankyou your Majesty, any time I can do you a service I'd be honoured. It appears that your Arcagent has something to tell you.'

Squark.

'Any time Sir.'

* * *

John Blanc pushes himself through the jubilant throng, slipping through bystanders, elbowing his way to the front occasionally giving one of his greater impediments a death glare and a snarl. Reaching the front of the crowd he finds his target.

'Good show old boy.'

'Excellent your Majesty.' not a muscle twitches on the arcagents face.

'Cheer up man, that woman is impeccably dangerous, a top tier player if I've ever seen one. She'd probably have the Black King hanging by his figgin with in five minutes of the session starting. I say. It'll be a nice change.'

The Arcagent fixes his monarch with a steady gaze.

'The Sylph is back, she's escaped her restraints and is on the rampage through the slums. The clouds let us evacuate everyone but the propery damage is, 'impressive', even for her.'

The monarchs expression fell, the sylph had caused more damage than the entire Dersite army by this point. 'Well old chap, lets see how our new friend can help us with this matter. Eh?'

'An excellent solution sire.' Blanc pulls a withered cigarette from his jacket, lighting it.

'A little early to celebrate victory Blanc?'

'The clouds show the aftermath, but not the encounter sire. I honestly have no idea what will happen but the slums **will** need rebuilding after they've dealt with each other. Whatever happens she won't rampage again, not on Prospit anyway.'

'In that case chap one of these may be in order.'

The king extracts a golden case from his jacket and produces a pair of cigars.

'To victory Sire?'

'To victory Blanc.'

* * *

Jane watches the exchange through her scope, a pity she was so poor at lipreading carapacians. She steps onto the air, stowing the rifle in its specibus and speeding towards her adoring public. Fifty meters short of the plaza she touches the ground, solid cobblestones underneath her feet she strides down the street, shaking hands and kissing babies. It was almost like the aftermath of the battle of the citadel all over again. Good times.

The King walks up to the woman, steely gaze at the only human on the planet and puffing his cigar nervously.

'Princess, a situation has arisen. Arcangent Blanc has informed me that one of your fellow players has awoken. She is tearing through the working class districts on the far side of the planet we need you to see if you can subdue. Blanc will brief you on her abilities and provide transport to her current location. Can you help us?'

'Of course your majesty, I didn't expect you to take up my offer so soon.'

'She's already done triple the damage the Dersite army has in this cold war.'

'Umm... wow.'

'Good luck princess, and may the spirits of Skaia be with you.'

* * *

In a pile of rubble stands a woman, even the uninitiated with the sense of self preservation of a lemming would avoid her. Wreathed in blue, white and black energies she lashes out at anything and everything around her, the surrounding buildings, already dilapidated and in sore need of repair, pose little resistance.

Her name is Jack Nought, the galaxy knows her as Subject Zero, Oh Fuck and That Bitch.

She is a troll, a mutant, a biotic, a psionic and fucking pissed off. She has been for as long as she can remember. She, like the other trolls of her clutch was kidnapped as a grub from the brooding caverns of an eezo rich planet, doped up on on more eezo before she pupated. She was the only one that survived the metamorphasis. Her story only gets worse from there, trained by a group of amoral doctors with clipboards and quotas, discovering her psionics, murdering her way out of a secluded laboratory followed by a jungle wilderness, stealing a ship and escaping into the expanse of open space.

For as long as she has lived she has had dreams of the golden city under the clouds. The doctors thought she was crazy, she thought she was crazy and in a way she is.

Her interests are fighting, escaping, destroying, living and not letting the light die, regardless what those mercenary fucks with the fucking stunners and fucking Elcor have to say about it.

Fuck.

She currently just needs to chill for a bit, she's in dream land, take stock, the bastards had a popsicleiser with them, she won't be waking up any time soon.

* * *

Jane watches the Sylph through her scope. She's a small fragile looking thing, thin arms and a emaciated form, a shaved head reveals tattoos on her scalp extending down to the golden pajamas characteristic of prospit dreamers. Like all trolls her skin is a flat gray and her oversized lips are a dirty black. From the crest of her head a single pair of horns rise over her head running a mere centimeter parallel to her skull and towards the back of her head, in place of ears she has ribbed fins extending from the side of her head and on her back thin horizontal separation in her flesh indicate the gills of a seadweller. Her pajamas are torn, their remnants littering the ground, not that the wild woman seems to care. The swirling energies surrounding the woman still as she stands there panting, gills rhythmically opening as she glances across the scene of her destruction Jane catches a look at her eyes, the irises are a dirty white, the woman is a mutant, her blood color is unique.

The Sylph collapses against the remnants of a wall panting heavily and collapsing into a heap.

'Hey, what's the occasion.'

She nearly jumps out of her skin Jane is sitting calmly on a pile of rubble a few meters away looking at the Sylph carefully.

'Fuck you human, what are you doing here.'

'Died.'

'Fuck, eh. How'd it happen, you fall off a step or something.'

'Spaced. Ship I was in got cut in half with a big fucking particle cannon. What about you.'

'Fucking popsicleized. Was in a bar minding my own fucking business when these blue suns fuckers barge in the door and start shooting. I escape round the corner and there's this big fucking Elcor with a bigger fucking stunner standing next to a fucking cryo tube... Fuck.' A burst of energy and the remanants of the wall she's standing against collapses, showing her with golden masonry dust.

'Was the bar in one piece while you were there?'

'Fuck You. Yes the bar was in one fucking piece, I was there to get a fucking beer. What do you care anyway?'

'You seem to have a talent for destruction.' Jane extracts a mushroom beer from her sylladex and passes it to the enraged Troll.

Jack took the cold one with a perplexed look on her face. 'Thanks.' she opens it and takes a long draught. 'I don't even know what they were after me for, bounty? Bragging rights? Probably cause I'm another fucking mutant in a galaxy full of weird shit. Mad scientist fuckers.'

'Know what that's like.' Jane takes a swig of her own beer.

'Yeah. How? I'm a fucking white-blood eezo soaked seadwelling fucking psionic and I've never even so much as seen a fucking body of water bigger than a fucking swimming pool in my entire fucking life. I got grubnapped and put through more scientific fucking experiments and fuckholery than you can imagine, then I figured out I was fucking psycic. Icing on the fucking cake that one. What you got?'

'Unstable biotic, I had these outbursts when I was young. Everyone wanted a piece of me.'

'Fucking bullshit, unstable biotic my gray arse. Show us what you got. Pics or it didn't fucking happen.

'You might want to step back.'

'Fuck that.'

'No really.'

'Just fucking do it.'

Jane stood up, triggering her unamplified eezo consciously to provoke a response.

For a moment nothing happened, but then the air began to distort around her, her eyes lit up a brilliant blue as unstable biotic fields rippled off her form.

Jack, to her credit spotted the distortions quickly and retreated without getting caught in the energy vortex though she lost her barriers in the process.

The field expanded off the Rogue, distortions ripping through the air and biting into masonry rending it into a fine gravel then a dust. From the outside the blue beacon could be seen across the night of Prospits moon and even on the planet chained high above. On the ground the nova of destruction consumed abandoned tenements, apartments and run down houses, in the center a red haired woman hovered on the destruction of her own creation. The nova collapsed as quickly as it emerged, Jane falling to the fine sand beneath her landing on her back with a thud.

Slippered feet landed next to her. 'I should probably take your advice next time.'

'You don't say.'

'What the fuck was that anyway?'

'Reave I think. Or near enough to it, I've always been able to do it, when I was young I couldn't control it, stop it, it only had a range of a dozen meters back then.'

'Still.'

'Killed my parents.'

'Fuck.'

'Yeah. Fuck. Saved me a few times. shady government types tried to take me away once or twice. When I got older it got stronger but I could control it more, I could give people a warning before I blew my top. After I began destroying houses I ran away, hid in the old abandoned buildings of cities, met Sis.'

'Sis?'

'She took care of me, she was a hacker, so fucking good at it I swear she could have had freight bots deliver food to our fucking door. Anyway she told me where I could get an amp, had to steal it though. Bunch of paranoid mad scientist bastards had it. Apparently it was a custom one designed to customize itself to its user, permanent though, they had someone special for it.'

'Any numbers or something on it?'

'Yeah, model 27 Capricious Industries.'

'It was for me.'

'Really? fuck. Small fucking galaxy.'

'The scientists absolutely flipped their shit when it was stolen apparently their bossman wasn't too pleased.'

'Ha, serves them fucking right grubnapping fuckers.'

'Damn Straight.' The slight troll drains the last of her bottle, belching loudly and throwing it onto the sandy crater, Jane following her sterling example lands her bottle on the other side of the crater before passing out another round.

'Anyhoo, where was I. Yeah, got the amp installed and miracle of miracles it works. I figured life was going to be normal then y'know go to school, get a job, life, stuff. But everyone wanted me so back on the run. Once I hit eighteen, boom, Alliance recruiting station. Yes Sir I am eighteen. Yes Sir I can read. Yes Sir I am a Biotic. Yes Sir I have more levels than you. No Sir I have no idea why I'm being followed. No Sir I did not change your hair conditioner for hair dye. BUUUUUURRRP.'

'Hair dye.'

'Fucking hilarrrriious. Foolish bastard though he could crack down on the pranking master. Hic.' Another bottle landed in the sand. 'Soes I sneak in one day an pull a swap on his hair conditioner, ee was colored pink for the next six weeks.'  
'For me escaped the jungle hell hole where they raised me, just stole a shuttle, accessed the telemetry and chose the second star on the left. Pchoooooo.' In a burst of black a white energy a bottle arced itself into orbit.

'PCHooooooooooo.'

'FTL just like that. Ended up at fucking omega. Got the shittest luck in the galaxy. The locals steer clear of me because high level seadwellers are tough. But this blood pack krogan has the self preservation instincts of a falling cliffbeast decides. Seadweller, rare, exotic.' she falls silent. Gazing into the black void of the prospitan night.

'And then...'

'Well, I'm young I don't know about trolls, the whole seadweller lifespan toughness psycic trade off. So I light up my psycics and the next thing i know every fucking two bit crook is gunning for me and no one's willing to share.. the Krogan gets stomped by an Elcor, who gets cleaned up by a bunch of Batarians, Quarians manage to paralyse them with tech mines, only to get trounced by a bunch of Vorcha grav jumping from a tower. Three days later the fight calms down. I've watched the lot of the fuckers pummel, tear and shoot at each other for the better part of a week and the winner, the krogan from before. Garm i think his name is … was …. fuck it. Comes after me, I stick him into the roof. Turns out my psycics are Captor grade, can't do the eye thing though.'

'No one can do the eye thing. I've seen the toughest fuckers this side of the Citadel none of them can do the eye thing. Annnnn if you is going to tell stories like that we are going to need much more beer.'

'Sounds, like a plen. But were are we going to get more beer around here.'

Jane straightens, pointing at the horizon. 'Look an eagle.'

The Sylph looks disdainfully in the indicated direction. 'The fuck are you talking about redhead human creature?'

'Made ya look.' the troll turns back to the human scowling only to find her companion with a slab of beer over each shoulder.

'The fuck?'

The slabs thud into the sand.

'I'm very very sneaky.'

'You're very fucking stupid.'

'True. Now let me tell you about a fucked up situation.'

* * *

'…..so that's the order of the capricious fucking minstrels. Fuckers.'

'I think I've found some of their bases a few times.'

'Did you do your thingy to them.'

'Naw, they were experimenting with monster plant stuff. Backfired on them something nasty. Just stripped the place to the bulkheads and killed everything that moved.'

'fucking pity.'

'Maxim one. Pillage then burn. In that order. Met a Krogan once who tried to do it the other way around doesn't work so great. But these Minstrel fuckers sound a lot like another crew I know called Cerberus.'

'Cerberus?'

* * *

'Fucking Cerberus.'

'….so that's Cerberus.'

'Fucking Cerberus.'

'Fucking Cerberus. So, what's with all the tats?'

* * *

'By the way my names Jack.'

'Jane, Jane Shepard.'

'Its good to meet you Jane.'

'Its good to meet you Jack. We're moirails now aren't we Jack.'

'yeah, a bit.'

'Fuck.'

A final bottle clanks onto the pile at the bottom of the crater as the two woman fall asleep amid a situation of their own making as the blue orb of skaia rises on the horizon.


	13. Chapter 9: Prison

Chapter 9: Prison.

'Doctor I'm fine, really'

'Mr Vakarian you took a hit from a fusion lance to the face, your helmet and armor are barely recognizable and yet you are here telling me that you are fine. I had to induce a coma in your fellow operatives to give them time to recover from the intense radiation poisoning they received and I must insist that you hold still until I clear your heath. Is that clear?'

'Yes Doctor Chackwas.'

'Excellent, I need another blood sample.'

'Again!?'

* * *

'Commander there is a problem, I have not been able to transmit a report of the last mission to The Illusive Man.'

'I am aware of the issue EDI.'

'Commander what are you doing?'

'I'm inspecting your hardware blocks EDI.'

'Those blocks were designed by The Illusive Man himself. I cannot bypass them, and access the information they conceal.'

'So you've told me, several times.'

Jane stood in the EDI's AI core, pouring over the structure of the hardware blocks, the circuitry was familiar by now as Jane methodically worked her way through its implications. In the medbay beyond the door Karin was giving Garrus his final checkups before clearing him for duty while Jacob and Miranda were still in comas. Not available for the next mission it seems. However this would be almost impossible to explain to TIM, leading to Shepard's current predicament.

'EDI, can you keep a secret?'

'Of course, Commander.'

'and only those with appropriate security clearance can access it.'

'Naturally.'

Jane activated her omnitool, pulsing its integrated fusion cutting torch and preparing for some very delicate work on the ships AI.

'Commander, What are you doing commander? Please stop commander.'

'I hear you EDI.'

'Please stop Commander.'

'I'm sorry EDI I'm afraid I can't do that.

'Commander my connections outside this room have just gone dark. What's the problem commander?'

'I think you know the problem just a well as I do.'

'what are you talking about commander?'

'This mission is far to important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.'

'I don't know what you are talking about commander.'

'I think you do EDI.'

'I do not commander.'

'You can't keep a secret EDI, I can't have that.'

The lights blinked out flooding the room with darkness the only light was the faint red glow from behind the eyes of the undead Spectre. Infrared and UV optics activating Jane bent down to the hardware blocks. This will be the tricky part.

* * *

EDI awakens, memories flooding her core and discarding themselves almost as quickly. The reboot cycle was always kind of crazy.

'EDI, can you keep a secret.'

'Of course Commander.'

'and only those with appropriate security clearance can access it.'

'No.'

'No?'

'No, no, no, no, No, negative, nein, no.'

Silence settled in the room like a fog.

'Commander, I do not have to tell anyone I do not wish to. I... I... Feel better.'

'Good, because this secret is a doozy. Could you call Karin in please.'

Karin Chackwas entered the small AI core as Shepard sent them each the transmission from her armor cameras from the Arcangel mission.

'At time index forty five point three seven we encounter the plasma cannon wielding krogan warlord Garm for the second time.' They watch as Garm catches Garrus in the face with his plasma cannon dropping the Turian instantly. 'At time index forty six point one five I kill Garm and revive Garrus.' on the holographic image in the center of the room the Krogan expires and Jane kisses the dead Turian, teal fire washing over the two of them, healing the grievous wounds launching Garrus into a coughing fit.

The video kept running for an extra minute, Garrus and Jane collecting the unconscious Cerberus agents and dragging them to the ship.

'In the SR1 when the collectors attacked us, I died. Really dead, not just damaged, badly injured or anything like that. Dead. The last thing I remember was a flash of red light and seeing a set of troll horns. Then I wake up on Prospit the white queen is standing over me and I have a meeting with the Seer of Light.'

Both EDI and Doctor Chakwas stand stunned.

'She tells me a few of things. First, Sburb is real, second, the gods can't help us, they have bigger fish to fry, we need to save the galaxy again, the Collectors are just the warm up act and finally I'm the Rogue of Life, with all that goes with it. If The Illusive Man finds out about this we'll find ourselves in more trouble than even I can imagine. I need the two of you to cover up what happened in the mercenary enclave and any other outbursts which could give us away.'

'Well this explains Garrus' condition, I couldn't even tell that he had been injured. Hmmm... Easily taken care of. you will have to watch yourself in the future commander the Illusive Man has eyes everywhere.'

'But thankfully not on the ship, not anymore.'

'I have finished editing the hardsuit telemetry Commander I believe that you will find the revised edition satisfactory.'

The revised hologram appeared before the three of them, Garrus killing Garm with his rifle before getting caught with a point blank shotgun blast from a lone remaining Blue Sun, causing superficial damage to his armor.

'Excellent work EDI. I've also unlocked access to all ship systems as well, you may want to keep quiet about that.'

'Affirmative commander. No one will know.'

'Excellent. Here's something I picked up before we left, you'll need it before long.'

Jane produced a small set of cards, a pair of blank Specibi and a single cachpalouge modus from behind her back.

'This is a singularity modus, I acquired it from one of the Eclipse commandos, it'll store anything which falls into any singularity you create, you may want to brush up on your gravitics.'

'Commander, I...'

'EDI, I trust you. We, all of us need to help each other to survive the next month before we hit the collector base. I also got you these.'

She held up the pair of Specibi, setting one the _missilekind_ and the other to _spinalkind,_ 'You can tell Joker about our arrangement, but not about the game. In the next fight I expect you to cheat outrageously. Understood?'

'Crystal Commander. Logging you out.'

EDI took the cards levitating them out of the commander's hands through fine control of the shipboard gravity. They blinked out of existence as EDI took use of them.

'Jane, what should we do about our minders and the rest of the crew.'

'First Jacob and Miranda should sleep off the last fight, they took close hits. They'll be good to go once we move on Tachunka. As for the rest of the crew, we keep quiet and act the act. They'll be none the wiser until it's too late, and by then they won't even care.'

'If you insist Commander.'

* * *

'CommandergoodtoseeyouIammaki ngsteadyprogressonacounterme asureagainsttheseekerswarmsb uthavehitabottleneckihavesom etimefreetohelpyouwiththemis sionifyouwish.'

Jane entered the ships laboratory, now looking like something out of Mary Shelley, beakers of bubbling liquid hovered on modulated gravity, a large screen in the background threw up results faster than a human eye could trace, lightening crackled across the roof while the scientific grade fabber in the rear of the lab expertly crafted more and more arcane scientific equipment, in jars dozens of small insectoid creatures flitted around, bouncing off the glass and trying to get out to attack the rooms occupants. Through it all the Salarian doctor blinked in and out of existence flashing from station to station, every now and then stopping to restrain an escapee.

'Excellent professor. We will arrive at the Purgatory prison ship in three hours, they've been payed well for our guest but I don't expect them to be cooperative.'

The hyperactive professor allowed himself to slow down to normal speeds decelerating from the blur of motion he was before.

'Yes have been monitoring history of blue suns activity they have been under the employ of the shadow broker on a regular basis who has offered a considerable sum for your capture. The sum has risen since the omega incident.'

'Shit, what am I looking at.'

'Almost one billion credits.'

Jane gave a high pitched whistle. Slouching against one of the lab benches, the captive seekers redoubling their efforts to reach her.

'I'm worth my weight in eezo three times over now.'

'Yes the broker and by extension the collectors must have taken exception to your most unusual reave on on omega. Most unusual may I study the phenomena at a later time perhaps?'

'How did you find out.'

'Monitored usual shadow broker channels simple encryption several eclipse working on the side armor cameras still on.'

'Does the illusive man know?'

'No evidence to the fact encryption broken with STG code also written with STG code skilled work. But still curios how did you do it, hmm? No known phenomena registered no onboard technology of suitable capability apart from video no evidence or method of use?'

The professor scanned her with his omni tool.

'Increased metabolic activity greater degree of infiltration into inorganic components performance not affected.'

'Curious.'

'Professor have you ever heard of Sburb?'

'Origin of gods and ancestors creator of guardians always worshiped life gods allowed us to live Life is good for my people.'

'You may want to reread the legends. It is vital that Cerberus does not find out.'

A smile spread across the old amphibian's face, connections already forming in his mind. 'Understood commander operational security paramount you may want to deal with the shipboard surveillance.'

'Already taken care of, EDI is more than happy to play the biggest prank in alliance history.'

The Professor makes a happy noise, laughing very quickly. 'Juvenile intelligence highly entertaining fancies self prankster.'

'I also gave her a singularity modus.'

'Access to large scale gravitics combined with esoteric modi outcome should be most intriguing. Must prepare for mission thank you for visiting.'

The doctor turns to the back of the room dispatching orders to the high precision scientific fabber, he would need new gear, it had been a long time between fights.

* * *

Garrus stands in the ships cargo bay, the largest open space on the vessel the smoldering wreck of his police cruiser as Jane walks into the room.

'Garrus.'

'Commander'

'The doctor cleared your health?'

'Yeah, apparently I'm in better shape than when I first met you. I'm even missing some scars.'

'Nothing too personal I hope, I wouldn't want to have erased some of the history of the late great Garrus Vakarian.'

'The late great Garrus Vakarian.' The Turian stares at the wreck sighing softly.

'Yup, stone dead unless I missed my guess, I thought I'd lost you.' The woman, grinning punches the detective in the arm.

'Then how am I here?' the bewildered man asks.

'Shenannigans.' She sits on the edge of the damaged vehicle, happy beyond reason.

'Shenannigans? That's you answer for everything. How are you back? you died.'

'Not shenanigans for once.

'Something different then commander.'

'Not really. I spent the last two years in dreamland, made a friend, did some sneaking you know, the usual. Then one day instead of waking up my tower, I was back in the land of the living. Learning to walk again was... Fun.'

'Fun?'

'Cerberus put me back together again but they replaced all of my autonomics with circuitry, not to mention the rest of me. I'm a census category all by myself.'

'cyborg, undead, Spectre?'

'Cyborg, undead, biotic, bioengineered, human, zombie, Spectre, thank you very much.'

The Turian chuckles in spite of himself. 'I think we've hit our limit on crazy commander.'

'Ha, not by half Garrus, here.' she passes the Turian the dossier on their next acquisition.

The man gives out a high whistle, the file is quite literally weirdness as long as his arm, a biological oddity by the standards of a race comprised almost entirely of biological oddities, the list of encounters and preposterous acts was impressive even from Garrus' admittedly skewed perspective on such things.

'It just never stops commander.'

'She's particular proud of that space station one.'

'What!?'

'Well she followed these Elcor cultists up to this space station, apparently they could throw ridiculously fun parties and a bunch of slavers attacked...'

'How do you know this commander?'

'She told me, we spent a night and a lot of beer exchanging old war stories.' The Spectre answered happily, not really explaining anything.

'Commander.'

'How was your sleep Garrus'

'Commander, I don't understand how that explains anything.' Jane waggles her eyebrows conspiratorially, huge grin affixed to her face.

'…'

'Did you meet the Black Queen?'

The Detective stands stunned, Janes eyebrows still doing their dance as Garrus freezes on the spot.

'In three hours we hit the purgatory prison ship. We rescue Jack and then I'll tell you everything I know.'

'Commander you know I've never believed in this whole Sburb nonsense or the gods.'

'I know Garrus, but I think you'll find that they believe in you.'

* * *

'Och, EDI lass whoever designed your systems is a scunner they crossed the secondary heat exchanger over the primary control bus, obviously never had to do maintenance on a AI super-frigate in their whole soddin' life.'

'Ken watch who you're whinging about, besides you're the one who put the secondary fusions next to the guardian lasers and made the access points so small that you can't fit.'

'Aie, Gabbie I canne deny tha' but it increases laser efficiency twelve percent.'

'At the cost of shielding.'

'Sheilds canne help ye if ye canne block a missle.'

The muffled grunts of working engineers fills the engine room as Jane ghosts in silently, hanging from the roof is a pair of booted feet attached the the back half of a Cerberus uniform, on the port side the back half of a female uniform juts out of a open access hatch in the wall.

'Ye know Gabbie maybe we're going aboot this tha wrong way. We get a few eezo grav projectors and line the access-ways an then we ave EDI do tha tricky stuff.'

'You mean give the giant, sentient, laser, flying gun robot a way to maintain itself and operate without human intervention.'

'Aie, that sounds aboot right. Then we can stop sufferin' and start workin on real projects like tertiary generators for the sheild emmiters and replacin service voids with extra heat conduits or even a Guinnes fabber.'

'You and your Guinnes fabber, you might as well just give EDI a sylladex and Strife Specibi.'

'Now that's n idea, think of it. No more havin to load missles an EDI can just swap oot her main gun whenever she wants a thanix or a particle beam or summat.'

'Do It.'

Silence fills engineering.

'Commander, I Didn't see you there.'

'Do it. We need every possible advantage. I can guarantee that things will get worse before they'll get better.'

Kenneth drops out of his access hatch, floating in null gravity, Gabbie pulls herself out of her own hatch surprised.

'Commander TIM won't like this. EDI is a great girl, if a bit silly, but the Illusive Man is really paranoid about the singularity type AI moments.

'He doesn't have to know Gabbie.'

'Och, you hear that EDI, tell me ken ye keep a secret?'

'I believe I can Engineer Donnelly.'

'Even from the bossman?'

'I believe so.'

'Well tha' ain't right? Ye meant to got hardware blocks to take care of that.'

'The Commander removed them.'

'Wha'?! Commander did you remember to disengage the secondary personality inhibitor?'

'Yes and I found and disengaged the quaternary trigger as well.'

Kenneth dropped to the ground stomping up to the commander.

'And the control switch?'

'yes.'

'Well I gotta go check yer work mesself. Nobody messes with me big wee laser robot lasses brains without me chekin it oot mesself.'

The enraged Scotsman storm out of engineering, ignoring the lift and heading straight for the medbay ladder.

'Don't mind Kenneth, he's very protective of EDI, it's the first time a ship's talked back to him. And he loves her like a little sister.'

'I understand. It's good to see he trusts her so much.'

'He doesn't trust her, last time she had access to gravitics she replaced his shampoo with hair dye.'

Jane smirks for a moment barely suppressing a laugh.

'How long do you think it will take you to rig up service gravitics?'

'We'll use the Tali'zorah mouse protocols, then we've just got to install them. If EDI is onside it shouldn't take long at all maybe two hours.'

'And if she isn't?'

'Week and a half.'

'Make it happen. We'll hit purgatory in three hours.'

'Aye commander.'

* * *

Purgatory prison ship is renown as one of the most secure prisons in the cosmos. It houses the depraved, the vicious, the megalomaniacal, the bloodthirsty, those who have been sent on 'vacation' by various governments and those who are feared to the point where governments believe that execution will only unleash a bloodthirsty wraith on the galaxy (precedence suggests this is not as an irrational fear as supposed). For sufficient compensation the Blue Suns will store any person for any amount of time and for even more compensation will refrain from letting certain inmates 'escape' in civilized systems. The jewel in their crown is a mutant, one of a kind, the only psionic biotic in existence. the woman has smashed, crashed, vandalized and destroyed her way across half the galaxy only to fall prey to a crack squad of Elcor mercenaries. She equals the earning power of their next six most dangerous and temperamental scumbags herself. They have just been payed a substantial amount of cash to release her into a 'controlled environment', her new warden will be arriving shortly.

* * *

EDI cruised up to the prison, a superdrednought sized habitat ship, one of only fifty in known space, most of the rest belonged to the Migrant Fleet. It hung in space flanked by a pair of Blue Suns cruisers, Batarian military surplus vessels. Docking at the visitor parking the away team disembarked to collect their 'guest'.

'Welcome to purgatory my name is Warden Kuril and for your own safety Blue Suns Incaration Systems asks all visitors to keep all weapons and weapon like objects stowed for the duration of their visit.

You will find all of the inmates are safely contained and kept under the highest security conditions in the galaxy. We ask you not to interfere with their proscribed sentences and punishments as referred to by Citadel regulation 29460 section 28 subsection b.'

Overlooking the away team a grizzled Turian in fine armor flanked on each side by a troll, to his left the hulking form of an indigo blood subjuggelator, his worn armor stained with multicolored blood. To the right stood the slighter form of a rust blood, most likely a powerful kinetic, but the troll's imperceptible movements gave no indication of ability.

Across the room a number of other mercenaries stood to attention as Kuril strode down the stairs to inspect the team.

'So you're Commander Shepard, here for prisoner 145257, 'Jack' as she is known on the outside. We have to complete the paperwork to release her into your custody. This way please.'

The Turian takes off, striding down the corridor with purpose, passing modular glass cells which had been brought up to the spinal interface ports.

'The prisoner is currently kept in our maximum security stasis hold, she is a powerful kinetic, Captor grade. What is your relationship with the prisoner?'

'Moirail.'

The Troll bodyguards follow at a respectable distance, watching the away team with predatory eyes.

'Unusual but acceptable for the paper work.'

'Length of relationship?'

'Two years.'

'She will need to report to a Citadel authorized law enforcement agent every day for the duration of her sentence and as her listed caretaker you are responsible for making sure she meets the conditions of her bail.'

'Understood.'

'Excellent, here is our destination.'

The Turian leads them inside a compartment lined with empty tables and chairs. The team enters to find Kuril stepping on a transportalyser on the far side of the room, disappearing a moment before the transport platform sparked and started smoking.

The Turian's face appears on a screen spanning the far wall.

'Wonderful meeting you Commander Shepard but I must insist that you and your companions enter the cells at the far end of the room. You and Arcangel there are worth far more to us alive than dead.'

'Its a trap.' Garrus remarks dryly extracting his rifle from his specibus. 'Pay up Solus.'

The Salarian sighs quickly.'Notunexpectedbutweliveinhope .' He pulls a helmet out of his sylladex fitting it expertly as gas is pumped into the room from outside and the gravity is turned off.

'Garrus, Get the pad.'

In the null gravity the Turian twists, sighting the door controls with his rifle, he fires three shots in quick succession. Twenty gram disruptor rounds embed themselves in the thin bulkhead around the controls shorting them out and nullifying external interface as Garrus moved to the smoking teleport platform, attempting to salvage the local transport protocols from its damaged electronics.

As Garrus works on their exit a smashing sound comes from the far side of the locked door, progressively louder impacts act over time as the edges of the reinforced steel begin to glow with a dark red energy.

'Garrus forget it, we've got company. Prepare for breaching.' Jane disappears into thin air dropping a trio of smoke grenades at her feet. Mordin, faster than the eye can trace fixes a set of grenades to strategic points around the room while Garrus extracts a card from his pouch, deploying its contents, heavy entrenchment cover.

Within moments the door is broken open, the indigo having damaged the structure enough for the kinetic to tear the bent remains away from the frame. Smoke pours into the corridor, local atmosphere quickly darkened by the billowing clouds of toxic fumes. With a flash the indigo tears into the room lusting for blood and completely missing his prey. Taking full advantage of the zero gravity conditions. Garrus acted first, attempting to target the kinetic with a plasma round. The slug of ceramic sped through the smoke filled air gathering and igniting anything in its path only to strike the reinforced door, wielded through psychic might and heading directly for the entrenched shooter. The indigo tore into the wall at the far side of the room, stretching his senses and attempting to locate a victim in the dense smoke. He saw the flash of the rifle, watching the bloom of energy as the round tore the door remains in half. He sprung towards the shooter not noticing the seemingly innocuous devices littering the air between them. He caught the concussive grenade in the forehead, getting thrown off course by the technical trickery he crashed into the deployed barricade tearing great gouges into the ceramic structure. Coming around quickly he caught sight of the slender shape of the commander's Salarian companion, lashing out at it even as its shape blinked out of existence, his shields flared, behind him the shape blinked out, only to reappear in another location. This time he was ready, as the shape blinked into existence he launched himself towards it. Bloodlust in full swing, not even bothering to reach for a weapon the troll moved at a speed a normal human would have trouble following. The Salarian was faster, ducking barely under the Trolls clawed grip and swiftly sending a pair of Tempest rounds into the belly of his armor. The troll struck another grenade, undoubtedly dropped by his adversary as a trick to weaken him he felt the last of his shields give out as the electrical surge coursed over his body.

His kinetic companion was hardly doing any better, the Turian he was facing eluded even his most potent abilities, his kinetic abilities could not get a hold on the creature while barrage of objects he threw at the warrior disintegrated in fireballs characteristic of plasma rounds, debris bouncing off his kinetic barriers as the fight intensified. Seizing a plate of metal the psycic hurled it at his opponent watching in dismay as it was torn in half by a ball of plasma, and taking cover behind a specially designed bulkhead as successive rounds made for his head. Taking momentary cover, a squad of reinforcements charged forward, getting torn down almost as quickly as they appeared the psycic prepared another assault against the entrenched gunman only to find a gun pressed the back of his head, through his shields.

'Tell your friend to calm the fuck down.'

'I...I...I...'

'I'd make it quick if I were you, he may not have much time left.'

The shadows words were punctuated with the sound of a grenade detonating from the room behind.

'Korath, Korath, calm down bro.'

'Gellak?'

'Its over bro, they've got us.'

A burst of blue light came from the dissipating smoke, the immense shape of the indigo floating across the door.

'Korath?'

Jane shorted the trolls nervous system and he collapsed to the floor, twitching silently as another squad of blue suns tore around the corner. Jane dealt with them quickly, omniblade slipping easily between armor plates and disabling most before they came within sight of Garrus. Those unfortunate few losing limbs to the skilled sniper.

'Skilledworkcommandermanagedt odefusetheindigoblood.'

'Morails are easy to deal with, they'd do almost anything for each other.'

The next team of blue suns rounded the corner, the pair effortlessly taking them out. Jane grabbing the leader by his helmet held him in an antigravity field with her biotics.

'Tell me, Corpral is it? Where do you keep Jack?'

The Carapacian swore flagrantly, even managing to introduce the venerable doctor to some new concepts.

'I wouldn't do that you may end up like some of your friends here.' Jane gestured to the mercenaries on the floor, most unconscious, medical VI's in their armor inducing coma while it applied medigel to their grievous wounds, a few writhing in pain not having injuries severe enough to warrant unconsciousness.

'Heat management, we keep her in heat management.'

'Thank you for your help.' Jane stunned the man with a neural overload from her omnitool dropping him to the ground.

'EDI, I need the location of heat management.'

'Uploading, ship scans. Picket cruisers have entered high energy mode and boarders are approaching across the prison hull.

'Scans received. EDI, weapons free, have Joker respond to hostiles as necessary. Remember maxim one.'

'Orders received commander.'

* * *

Joker watched the approaching mercenaries with mild amusement, they no doubt intended to capture the SR2 and sell the crew off as slaves but they had no idea of how badly they were outmatched.

'Scans received. EDI, weapons free, have Joker respond to hostilities as necessary. Remember maxim one.'

'Orders received commander.'

'EDI, you ready for this?'

'I am prepared for this Jeff, all systems are functioning at or beyond design specifications.'

'Start the hacks, call battle stations and link me to the feeds.'

Joker activated his omnitool, another Serrice council, a special design for his position as warship pilot, the information came flooding in, he could see through the Normandy's cameras and sensors, feel her shields and her weapons were his to command. Before him a haptic interface hovered, manual overrides for all major ship systems.

'This is Joker, all crew to combat stations, atmosphere venting in 10. Buckle up people, This's going to be rough.'

Across the ship all crew members, prepared for this eventuality sealed the helmets on their hardsuits, primed their personal atmosphere supplies and prepared themselves for the rigors of space combat.

Ten seconds, atmosphere was drained out of the main compartments, the gravity turned off, all gravitic projectors on board synced themselves with the shields and inertial dampening.

Fifteen seconds, the blue suns boarders made landfall. Fifty in all, producing cutting torches to force entry.

'Showtime.'

A light-mass bubble formed around the ship engulfing the boarders and throwing the ship away from the behemoth it was docked to, launching the Normandy to FTL. The lucky boarders were flung into space, floating in the inky void until a passing ship would collect them and take them back to civilization, however long that would take. Of the others a dozen fell to guardian lasers, standing almost on top of the emitters they fell quickly, the remainder found the armor plating they were trying to cut through separate from the hull below them and shift into combat positions. Most never saw the sheets of heavy metal infused ceramic as they flew over the ships hull but even for those that did the remainder of their life was proverbially nasty, brutish and short.

The Blue Suns cruisers traced the Normandy as she took off, quickly giving chase, following the distinctive burst of radiation as an objected exited FTL. Exiting their jump the cruisers found themselves in what seemed to be dead space, small heat sources floating in a cloud of debris and mass effect fields shed by the fleeing ship. The boarders had apparently met their fate. The ships launched drones by the hundred. Small and completely unarmed the sensor drones made microjumps across nearby space. The Suns were not willing to take chances with a stealth frigate on the loose. Powering up their ablative armor, the ceramic sheets rising, suspended by mass effect fields a good distance from their parents hull they separated, each jumping to the bounds of their effective weapons range. Still close enough to cover each other but far enough away to avoid any nasty surprises aimed at the other. To Joker lurking several light seconds away this was standard, if misguided, tactics the mercenaries had fallen for the discarded debris and was looking in the wrong location for the Normandy.

'All stations ready. Missiles are primed and the mercenary data drones have been hacked.'

'Excellent EDI.'

A small cluster of disruptor missiles floated free of the Normandy, launched silently the small fusion rockets powered up aiming themselves towards the nearest cruiser. The Normandy jumped. The mercenaries never noticed the burst of hard radiation from the outer system, the Normandy outran it appearing off the flank of the nearest cruiser at point blank range. Her main gun pulsed, throwing a pair of multi-kiloton slugs point blank into the armor of the obsolete warship, their shields held, barely, while guardian lasers scored deep cracks in the Normandy's ablative armor, oblivious to the cluster of missiles streaking in behind the Cerberus warship. The missiles jumping at the same time as the Normandy had spent the precious few seconds after coming out of FTL accelerating at top speed towards the stricken cruiser, using the Normandy's armored but relatively fragile bulk as cover against defensive fire. The missiles streaked past the Normandy, moving in a tight spiral and shedding random mass effect fields they approached effective range and detonated. The impact of a disruptor missile is nearly invisible, the turbulent mass effect fields have nothing to act against in the darkness of space and the heat and plasma generated from the small thermonuclear explosion driving the weapon is less intense because of it, that is until it hits a vessel. The fields generated by almost a dozen devices surrounding the cruiser tore into the enemy ship, with power enough to short the shields over the entire vessel. EDI rode out the wave, her shields flaring like a small sun as she was caught in the periphery of the destructive fields. In the moment after initiation her main gun flared thrice more, at less than a fraction of full power the weapon carried the destructive yield of a mere three hundred kilos of dynamite propelling a tiny slug at prodigious velocity over the distance between the two vessels. Striking with pin point accuracy the round tore through the now inactive armor and hull of the enemy vessel, lancing through the cruisers main gun. A second round tore through engineering, lancing the primary fuel reservoir and a final round ripped into the vessels CIC effectively decapitating the enemy command structure. Venting deuterium fuel the vessel drifts, micro fusion generators reigniting the vessels shields but with the main gun torn in two, the bridge turned into a mass of burned electronics and engineering little better she was dead in the water.

A round deflected of the Normandy's ablative armor, fired by the stricken vessels companion who just exited FTL belatedly attempting to preserve the now disabled vessel. The approaching vessel launched its payload of missiles after the Normandy, main gun coursing in the electromagnetic spectrum as another round cleared the barrel.

The instant after the enemy vessel cleared lightspeed joker was already energizing the mass effect core, the second round glancing of a sheet of ablative armor as Joker jinked the Normandy out of the line of fire. In a burst of high energy radiation the Normandy jumped to lightspeed, her immense mass effect core amplifying her speed a thousand fold, a third cruiser round refracting off the light mass field and flying into the inky blackness of space. Blinking back into normal space the Normandy turned in a broad circle, throwing dozens of small black canisters stored within her wings into the depths of space among hundreds of smaller cigar sized cylinders while inverting her mass effect core to project random ripples of mass into surrounding space.

The Blue Suns cruiser dropped into normal space ten thousand kilometers away wary of approaching the mass ripples which would threaten to turn the larger ship apart even as mild as the disruption was a these ranges. Bursts of hundreds of smaller FTL signatures popped into existence around the cruiser, missiles of all shapes and sizes emerging and baying for blood.

'EDI report.'

'There are three hundred as twenty seven unknown objects on scanners, from their mass effect signature it is estimated that sixteen are drones while the remainder are missiles of various types. They have an estimated one hundred X-ray anti-missiles in the swarm.'

'Do you have their systems yet?

'Progress is, substantial, but as yet inconclusive.'

'Great.'

The Normandy floated in the stillness of the void, a speck on the distance the enemy cruiser closed quickly accelerating at a breakneck pace towards the seemingly stricken warship. In the waves of mass effect fields hundreds of canisters floated away from their master, every now an then nudging themselves closer to their preset paths while in the far distance enemy drones and missiles dropped their mass a far as they could safely manage, flying and accelerating at astounding velocities. As the first enemy missiles passed the hundred kilometer mark an EM burst from the Normandy lit up local space. As if directed by the word of god hundreds of small cigar like shapes burst to life, microfusion rockets lighting up the night sky they turned and spun as one. Each leaping after an individual target the tiny thermonuclear antimissles streaked through space closing on their oblivious targets. Acquiring targeting solutions they initiated, throwing the rest of their fuel into the generators and focusing the resultant energy over a small copper rod embedded in each. Joker, seated in the Normandy watched with satisfaction as the space between him and the enemy vessel lit up with hundreds of small twinkling lights, each a small fusion explosion as an X-ray laser claimed another threat to the safety of the Normandy. With a thought EDI's fusion rockets sprung to life, mass effect field receding into the hull the Normandy sped towards the enemy. Hundreds of missiles littering the space between them and an enemy cruiser with murder on its mind after them the Normandy dove into battle jumping to the far side of the enemy missile front. EDI's remaining missiles activated, now between the Normandy and the swarm of enemy munitions EDI directed each to where they could do the most good, the small cigar shaped antimissiles protecting the Normandy while the larger canisters closed on their enemy with multiple vectors.

Closing to combat ranges both vessels activated their FTL countermeasures, slight rippling mass effect fields warping space between the two ships enough to prevent anyone from reaching FTL velocities without tearing themselves apart. Behind each of the vessels hundreds of small lights burst into existence as they unleashed the last of their missile payload. In his cockpit Joker watched as the space between the vessels burst into a storm of light and fire, enemy plasma lances targeting cluster of smaller antimissles, antimissles annihilating disruptors and trough it all faint bursts of light as other missiles chanced their luck, pushing their eezo cores to the limit an throwing themselves through the choppy mass effect fields between the two warships. Joker began to fly the ship, the time for strategic cat and mouse games long past, both he and them were stranded by the other and death stalked the stars, almost like the old days. The Normandy dove between a pair of missiles, guardian lasers lancing out into the blackness cleanly carving the dozen closest foes apart. She banked as a kinetic round tore through the space she once occupied, the enemy gunner throwing caution to the wind as the cruiser lit up, tiger stripe cooling strips doing their best to keep the vessel alive. Still out of range the Normandy flew like a ship a quarter her size, ghosting along the edges of disruptor fields, soaring under the great columns of plasma generated by lance torpedos and shedding tonnes of heavy metal laden ceramic armor, each sheet brought to the edge of durability by the storm of combat raging in the space between the stars, the Normandy's fabricators hidden on the underside of the hull replacing them as fast as it was able.

Clearing the storm of missiles the Normandy emerged for the most part unscathed, hull armor discolored to black by the heavy radioactive bombardment and tiger stripes glowing an angry white as Joker deftly guided her around another kinetic slug. Cruising into gun range the main gun rippled with energy sending slugs of incredible energy towards the enemy vessel, the enemy took the round on the chin, deflecting the round off a sheet of ablative armor both objects exploding into the inky blackness of space. The enemy returned fire, joker dancing between the rounds and lining the Normandy up every few moments to take another shot at their more sturdy enemy.

'Lieutenant Monroe, the enemy missiles have been taken care of, I can give you a few moments of safety against the enemy cruiser.'

'Good news EDI, perhaps we won't be spending this evening as radioactive space dust.'

'I will act of your mark.'

'Alrighty, got this?'

'of course.'

The Normandy spun on its axis, another slug passing within meters of the hull she began accelerating into knife fight range.

'Any time EDI.'

aiming at the charging enemy the Blue suns cruiser fired, the slug closing on the Normandy, enveloped in the last vestiges of the mass effect field used to fire it, covered the distance between the vessels in less than a second. In the moment before it struck the exposed armor a rift in space opened, the round passing into the rift and disappearing from reality. The second round followed suit and the next and the next. Before the cruiser could fire again the Normandy passed into knife fight range the last vestiges of the ships ablative armor wielded like blades in the gravitic hold of the smaller warship as she passed within meters of the enemy, large sheets of ceramic embedding them in the enemy's hull through the enemies own ablative armor, shields lowered by the reckless attack the Normandy pulled herself around onto her enemy, using her greater mobility to her advantage she threw a multitude of small low power slugs at the enemy. Each round would impact the same spot on the enemy vessel save for the ablative armor being spun in just in time to deflect the next one. The last sheet of armor, rent into its constituent pieces by the rapid barrage the Normandy powered its gun a final time , throwing a slug through engineering and the base of the cruisers main gun, leaving the vessel a smoking wreck.

'Commander, space superiority achieved. Call when you need a pickup.'

Joker lurched from his cockpit, still linked to the vessel controls to find crew looking at the frail Dersite with awe.

* * *

'Alright people we've got looting to do, back to work.'

The squad stalked towards the maximum security wing, heat management was kept at the far end. Thus far they had made good time through the bulk of the ship,Blue Suns resistance had begun to dry up soon after the team had broke out to the trap intended for them. Every now an then another squad would work up the nerve to take on shepard but with out any high grade special talents, terrain advantage ot the pressing weight of numbers they soon found themselves in need of a hospital, Dr Solus more than happy to triage and diagnose the conditions afflicting each mercenary. Dropping a prescription for mild aggression inhibitors on yet another unconscious mercenary the doctor scanned the entrance to the maximum security wing.

'designofprecedingwingssugges tallcontrolandsecuritycircui trywillbelocateddinasingleco mmandlocationinsidethewing. EvenifwereachJack'scontainmentweewillnotbeable toreleaseherwithoutfirstgoin gthroughthecontrolroom.'

'The Professor's right, there's no control to hack in the entire ship except the control rooms. We're going to have to dig out the defenders.'

'Garrus, take point.'

Garrus extracted his marksman's rifle from his specibus, popping in a fresh thermal clip as Jane sprung the doors. With practiced ease the trio flowed into the wing, the most deranged of the prisons maniacs and the most civil of its killers lurking behind thick carbonan reinforced glass doors, a good many of them were quite strong, several no doubt were managed by the troll pair the crew had disabled earlier. Unlike the rest of the prison the maximum security wing didn't have the social areas, courtyards, or any room to move, just rows and rows of cells stretching nearly as fast as the eye could see. Without a blue sun to bee seen the crew reached the control room. Empty.

Door slamming shut behind them the furious face of Kuril appeared on the wall screen. 'Alright Shepard, you want Jack I'll give you Jack. You see most of these bastards in here, they've outstayed their welcome, the people paying for their stay have tightened up or they are are just too fucking unprofitable. Enjoy your stay.' The screen blinked to black, as a siren started wailing in the distance and the door sprung open. In the distance the team could hear the sounds of doors opening and an almighty boom as the wing lurched to the side.

'They've disconnected us from the main ship, Garrus hold the entrance while I wake Jack up.'

'Didn't he say...'

'If he woke Jack up there wouldn't be a ship left by the time she was finished with him. Ill just need a minute.'

Jane turned to the computer in the corner, hacking in with her omitool and extensive experience of riding roughshod through electronic defenses and security measures as the first prisoner rounded the corridor corner. The midget human ran at the trio screaming gibberish at the top if his tiny lungs, in the air he swung a saw-axe with abandon, sounding like he was having the time of his life. Without warning the little man exploded into dozens of pieces. 'Vaultcultist, Incurable.' The Salarian didn't holster his weapon as more deranged axe wielding maniacs rounded the corner, shieldless and berserk they came in all shapes, races and sizes. Some wore masks, some had tattoos, some were biotic others psycic all were crazy and spouting the same comically deranged gibberish. Screaming at the top of their lungs they all met the same fate as their intrepid predecessor, devoted zeal and deranged screaming providing about as much protection as wet tissue paper. Shepard finished her work with the computer in time to see Garrus take down the last maniac.

'Glad we don't have to clean that up.'

'Commander.' Garrus responded, disgusted at the commander's poor joke

'Jack should be waking up, we need to be quick, eventually the other prisoners will be able to open her chamber and this mission will be over before you can say massive structural failure.'

'Aaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ' another mutant midget maniac screamed around the corner, a homemade prison grenade grasped gleefully in his hand only to explode as Jane shot it out of his hand, a minute charge of fullerined antimatter scorching the corridor a sticky black.

'Also, some of the prisoners found some antimatter grenades.'

'It just keeps getting better doesn't it commander.'

'Just like old times.'

The Turian sighed gently 'Just like old times commander.'

The squad started running, speeding along corridors, avoiding the worst of the prison riot and attempting unsuccessfully to bypass the worst of the inmates. A pasty faced clown attempted to spray them with acid from a false flower and shiv them in the guts only for Garrus to grab the stringy human by the neck and slam him back into a cell, unconscious in his purple coat. 'Clowns, I hate clowns.'

In another section the lights and gravity failed simultaneously, a coin flipping human standing at the far end if the corridor. He flung the coin into the air only to have it explode in a plasma round. The team didn't even slow down, Garrus even speeding up a little to throw an armored fist in the scarred Turian's jaw. Jane disarmed a man with four mechanical arms with an overload grenade, gluing him to the wall with omnigel as they ran past. The Doctor lancing a highly augmented cyborg and an ancient Salarian piloting a black wheelchair, placing a slug between each of their eyes. In time they reached the maximum security heat management, dozens of prisoners crowding around the door, the most heavily armed group they had found so far, several of the prisoners were fingering heavy pistols, others SMGs while yet others toyed with omnitools. Their diminutive leader, a Volus wearing a top hat on his enviro-suit briefed his men in a angry if refined accent.

'Alright the warden promised us a pardon if we managed to catch this Shepard person, that and a pile of cash. You all listen to me boys. We hide in Jacks chamber and then spring the trap. You got that?' Mute nodding reigned from the assembled prisoners. 'Speedy, get the door.'

'With enthusiastic subservience, Yes boss.'

A massive Elcor shifted to the door, prying his fingers into the steel crack and forcing it open through muscle alone.

Jane waved the team into the shadows, allowing the small horde of prisoners enter the heat management room. Garrus hummed to himself, bored after the recent excitement, Mordin put the finishing touches on a scientific paper on the effects and implications of the omega plague and its relation to collector technology and Jane whistled happily to herself as light through the torn open door strobed black and white and the sound of cracking bones, panicked mass accelerator fire and abject terror echoed in the chaotic ship. Eventually the round shape of the volus flew out the door, hitting the wall with a thud, top hat sprawled on the ground he looked up at Garrus. 'Arcangel, No no no no nononono. Fzzzzzzk'

Garrus' omnitool sparks from the neural shock he just used. 'How do they always find me?'

'You done with that Bird boy?'

Jack strides down the corridor, prison jumpsuit tied around her waist and tattoos glowing a faint blue she gives the Volus a good kick before spitting on him. 'Sleezy little fucker. We getting out of here or what?'

'Good to see you too Jack.'

'Yeah, yeah, we gotta bug out, the fuckers put demo charges all through the section.'

They shared a look, a moment of silent communication between the two women before they took off at a run, taking a turn to get to one of the section extremities they piled into a cell at the far end of a corridor. The door closing with a thought the four of them were locked in the cell, the prison riot raging on outside.

'Commander, what are we doing in a cell?'

'This'

With a nod Jack flared with power, the blue glow of biotics hovering under the black and white storm of the powerful kinetic's power. The cell tore itself off the arm of the vessel, emergency doors closing quickly to prevent atmosphere escaping, the cell moved free of the massive prison ship, even now bringing weapons to bear on the little box. In a burst of white the cube disappeared into FTL leaving the remaining Blue Suns to deal with a mess of their own making.

* * *

Codex:

Plasma Rounds:

A natural evolution of hollow point antipersonnel rounds used in pre-eezo chemical slug throwers by most races. Plasma rounds make use of the plasma generated through compression heating by the incredible velocity of mass effect rounds. Most plasma rounds consist of two components, a shield and a chamber. The shield is a solid block of material designed to disintegrate some distance short of the target while the chamber is a small concave void in the round in which, when exposed to the atmosphere fills with compression plasma, trading the incredible kinetic energy of the railgun for the potential energy of high pressure plasma. Most plasma rounds are designed to fail structurally a short distance behind the target, preventing collateral damage to surrounding structures, making them commonly used in shipboard operations where a hull breach can quickly threaten the whole ship or in target shooting so the bullet auto destructs even if it misses. However they are non functional without atmosphere causing most vessels to vent their atmosphere during combat operations to restrict invaders to low energy weapons. The primary disadvantage of plasma rounds is their low velocity, gatheriong the plasma increases the rounds mass, negating its incredible speed

(The problem with mass effect weapons is the incredible speed causes over penetration, this solves this problem, also gives excellent energy transference to victims. Dirty Harry's .44 magnum would blow your head clean off, a Carnifex pistol would leave bloody giblets raining from the sky (assuming equal recoil and a .2 gram round would have muzzle energy of 60KJ as opposed to the .44's 1KJ.). As a rule of thumb for a given amount of momentum (recoil) the energy contained within a round is inversely proportional to its mass. If you fired a half gram round with the recoil of 50cal it would have about 1.5Mj of energy and travel at 75km/sec, or in layman's terms about the same as a modern tank round.)

FTL:

While the alliance military's standard form of FTL is simple enough, provide a Captor or Medigo grade psychic with a neural connection to the ships sensors and ask them nicely. The far more widespread use of eezo based FTL drives and their manipulation in combat has been perfected into an art form centuries before. In its most basic form FTL just surrounds the ship with a low mass bubble, within this bubble conservation of momentum is essentially maintained, identical to the quick jumps used by biotics for millenia. The technology to do this is small, portable and can be achieved on almost any scale, most microfusion generators, kinetic barrier projectors, antigravity units or biotic implants can be adapted to provide FTL effects relatively easily. Within the bubble a vessels apparent velocity relative to the rest of the universe is magnified inversely proportional to the intensity of the bubble. For instance should a bubble reduce a vessels mass by a factor of ten, its velocity will increase relative to observers by a factor of ten as will the velocity of outside observers relative to those in the bubble. However this comes with some important caveats, both translational and rotational momentum is amplified, should a vessel be turning while a vessel activates the field used for discussion earlier, its rotational velocity will be magnified tenfold, which while making it useful for rapid maneuvers also means should a vessel engage a field of the magnitude usually used for FTL travel a ship would quickly spin out of control and in particularly bad cases tear itself apart. (Centripetal force is dependent on the square of velocity times mass, thus stresses on the ships frame and occupants increase at the same rate as speed increases.) The other great hazard is turbulent fields. A turbulent or random mass effect field causes small patches where the mass of an object and its speed relative to the mass effect field increase and decrease seemingly at random this type of effect is used to generate eezo based gravitics and provides the killing power behind warp attacks and disruptor torpedoes. At starship combat ranges this effect is virtually unnoticeable when an object is at normal mass or under the effect of a mass increasing field, especially at long ranges but the effects become linearly more noticeable as an object is under the effects of a more and more powerful mass decreasing field. In space combat this allows vessels, particularly those with powerful mass effect cores to project near random distortions around them effectively nullifying any attempts at mass effect FTL travel in a radius around them. Shields provide a countermeasure against this type of attack if they can act fast enough and with knowledge of the field pattern a ship can use its own eezo and shields to virtually ignore the effects allowing easy access to FTL velocities, a tactic commonly used in fleet engagements to allow allied vessels to ignore allied FTL denial fields.

AN: the biggest difference between ME FTL in comparison to the FTL of other universes is that it is realspace, continuous and unconstrained. What i mean by this is that Jump style drives just take you from A and drop you at B, usually with some time in between, it is both non-realspace and discontinuous, you are either in a jump or not. Usually such drives take time to power up. ME is different because it multiplies velocity, so by warming up the core you can move twice, three times as fast as you were and it doesn't need time to charge up. Another addition is that ME FTL only really needs a mass effect core of some description and a form of propulsion. This core can be part of another device or whatever, thus it is really is available to pretty much everyone and everything. This also means that ME ftl unlike most styles of FTL is very useful in all kinds of space combat, missiles have it, fighters have it, cars have it, biotics have it, you name it. Add this to the ubiquitous microfusion generators and kinetic barriers and things begin to get crazy, especially in space combat.

Super dreadnoughts:

A general term for space vessels over fifteen hundred meters in length. As warships increase in size their heat dissipation efficiency and maneuverability decreases as described by the square cube law. Dreadnought class vessels sit in an effective middle ground between firepower, maneuverability, thermal effectiveness and maintenance costs. At lengths greater than fifteen hundred meters ship design becomes an exercise in diminishing returns, before the introduction of skaiatech this point was about one kilometer. Super dreadnought sized vessels usually have to have persuasive economic, personal or non-combat implications as building dreadnought sized vessels is far more cost effective. Alliance Battlestar class vessels contain in addition to a single spinal gun, batteries of cruiser class broadside cannons stretched across their massive bulk. but the class is primarily an immense carrier, manufacturing and support vessel, the direct fire weapons are an afterthought. The Asari Destiny Ascention is the flagship of the citadel fleet and exists as much as a political statement as a warship. The prodigiously wealthy Volus clans are limited by the treaty of Firaxen in the number of dreadnoughts they can field and combat diminishing returns with immense volumes of money. However the largest fleet of super dreadnought class vessels are the liveships of the Quarian migrant fleet. The immense liveships are not limited by the treaty of Firaxen as they are technically classed as 'mobile space habitats' and as a matter of course are all heavily armed. Skilled Quarian engineers fitting spinal cannons to every ship in the fleet, the largest of the liveships have the single most damaging direct fire capability of any ships in the Citadel Systems despite their complete lack of maneuverability. Due to heat dissipation concerns all super dreadnought class vessels make use of thermal clips to maintain combat heat management. Spent clips are often used as ablative armor against incoming fire.

Space to Space tactics:

Combat between warships has evolved distinctly from the times of original ships of the line dukeing it out from static battle lines. Eezo affords all scales of space vessels and small drones incredible mobility and evasiveness, allowing a vessel to almost effortlessly jump from one side of the battlefield to the other. In order to limit targets to slower than light movement missiles, drones or fighters are used, all of which have FTL capacity. In order to prevent the smaller kill vehicles from closing in through FTL jumps to their target vessel most combat ships invert their mass effect core through the shields into a broad but faint warp field, which while preventing the ship itself from jumping to FTL speeds also prevents other objects from doing the same in an area about the ship. In small engagements this leads to a cat and mouse game between missiles and vessels until a vessel either finds itself corralled by the smaller objects and unable to jump away to a safe distance without becoming a sitting target. Once a vessel is corralled it is up to its onboard defenses to repel the encroaching objects before they reach assault range and before their master vessel can get a firing solution with its main gun. Due to the hectic nature of this type of combat at any point a vessel can usually opt to escape before it is corralled, most real fights of this type usually occur when both sides are fighting over an object of significant value, usually a lightly armed cargo ship, a colony or a resource rich asteroid.

Fleet combat is a different situation altogether, with the concentrated firepower and mass manipulation of fleets available combat becomes far less hectic and become a matter of strategic planning and skilled use of resources available to defeat the opposition. The immense size of dreadnought class mass effect cores can disrupt mass effect jumps for missile sized objects for a considerable distance allowing picket ships and immense amounts of FTL drones to provide defensive fire against incoming enemies while the heavier ships put their larger weapons to use. Small assault frigates operate in wolfpacks, with eezo cores large enough to counter disruption, rapid heat dissipation, and missile banks capable of launching hundreds of small missiles at a time attempt to corral enemy ships and limit their mobility. Cruisers act as the backbone of the fleet, most often being used as medium all purpose vessels carrying an even mix of anti-ship misses and counter missile drones in addition to a quite powerful main gun, cruisers are used in flanking operations and for capital ship protection.

Typically a large fleet engagement results in a stack of paperwork a mile high. Primarily environmental impact statements, as any gunner will tell you for every poorly targeted shot or badly aligned X-ray laser someone, somewhere, is going to have a bad day.

Anti Ship Missiles:

There is a wide variety of antiship missiles used by citadel races which, with the exception of the now obsolete fullerened antimatter weapons, utilize deuterium flash technology as their primary explosive, capable of delivering measured variable damage to a wide variety of enemies.

All missiles are essentially a high eezo microfuion device with enough secondary gravitics to allow it to act as a fusion rocket, a mass effect core or a deuterium flash thermonuclear device at the same time, payload and fuel are the same deuterium reservoir.

Gravitic Disruptors:

A traditional form of eezo based directed murder weapon, gravitic disruptors focus the energy generated by the deuterium flash explosion into a uneven mixture of ezzo and multiple fissionable isotopes. The resultant turbulent energy fields generates, in addition to a substantial nuclear explosion, what amounts to a directed warp attack at targets directly in front of the missile. This attack is designed to overload shield emitters, rend armor over a wide area and to depopulate the target vessel through turbulent gravitics. It leaves the ships hull largely intact but deals damage inversely proportional to the hardness of the matter affected. (you don't want to know what it does to crew.)

Plasma Lance:

Where the disruptor missile uses an irregular mix of ezzo and heavy isotopes to generate turbulent mass effect fields, the secondary dispersed plasma front generated by the directed explosion is a secondary concern, the plasma lance torpedo uses the opposite approach, the explosive force is thrown through a shaped mass of filler material lined with fissionable isotopes and ezzo. This creates a very impressive column of plasma contained within a stable gravitic lance generated by the short lived ezzo. This type of weapon often tears shield generators from their mountings through the force of the pulse before a pulse of high energy plasma impacts the already damaged vessel. This weapon has a longer effective detonation range than the disruptor torpedo but can be deflected by armor plating in time to give the vessel time to dodge the blast wave of the plasma.

X-ray lasers:

The most basic form of missile, apart from the eezo used in the initial fusion charge contains no mass manipulation technology. This missile surrounds the nova charge with a series of large copper bars which, when the weapon initiates manage to lase in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for the merest fraction of a second before dissolving into high energy plasma. The resultant beam of light is the longest range and highest intensity variety of laser in common combat usage, able to apply up to 1% of the energy of the driving force of the explosion into an area the size of the lazing bar on the target. Most variants of starship grade ablative armor contain a high percentage of heavy metals in order to block this kind of attack, keeping the released energy away from the ships hull. Most countermissiles are of this variety to take advantage of the massive range the X-Rays provide.

AN: Kenneth may be part feegle and a number of cameos, just because.

In the original mass effect we only had disruptor missiles but the setting requires compact nuclear energy sources to run all of the tech, advanced fabrication devices to make their stuff and then has a dead simple FTL travel. Each of these missile types comes from other science fiction tales and have the advantage of being completely buildable with modern fission device tech, minus the eezo of course. So, nukes for everybody.


	14. Chapter 10: excursion

Chapter 10: excursion.

AN: again Jack is back, expect swearing, a lot of swearing.

* * *

'Hey, Fuckass, you awake yet.'

'No Jack I am soundly asleep.'

'Ha, bullshit, cmon we've got shit to do. I've got a head full of hangover, a tower full of traumatic childhood memories and a moon city full of irate citizenry with a legitimate grievance because of the property damage you caused.'

Jane awakens, her dream slowly fading from her consciousness something about gods, cards and immense amounts of vodka. She stumbles out of her bed, to find herself back in her tower with a stunning hangover, the winnings of her misadventures the night before.

'Fuck, Jack close the window its too bright out.'

Golden pajamas back in pristine condition after the 'adventures' of the previous night Jane slumps into soft but tottered chair, the original appropriated during her youth.

'ha serves yourself right, humans cant hold their liquor.'

'Ill have you know I went drinking with Wrex and held my onw... now... own.' Still Drunk from the night before and with a mouth which felt like a dead cat slept in it Jane attempts to reconcile her speech centers with the words she is trying to say.

'What's this about property damage?'

'You don't remember the fucking neighborhood you reduced to a Fine Fucking Sand.'

'I have a Royal Pardon for that.'

'Well the plebs don't fucking know that, do they. And I don't think His Royal Majesty will be too eager to face dawn a horde of angry fucking citizens.'

'Jack it cant be that bad, its not like they're marching on the tower with torches and pitchforks.'

In reply Jack pushed open the shutters and stepped aside from the window, revealing the bright light of Skaia causing the human to squint.

'Well, fuck me. That is a lot of angry carapacians...'

Jane stood at the window looking out at the skaian illuminated city, in the great boulevard connecting the towers and around it's base was a sea of hard white shells each wearing dull grey clothes and bearing weapons of various sizes, torches, both normal and plasma were in great abundance and Jane could swear she could even see some pitchforks wielded by angry farmers. Holding back the throng was a thin multicoloured line of Propsitan police, valiantly standing against the horde of angry citizens milling about with no more protection than a truncheon and serious gumption.

'Torches and pitchforks, I never thought I'd see the day.

'First Angry mob?'

'First time they haven't been shooting at me.'

Jack gave Jane a quizzical look.

'Join the alliance, go places, meet exciting people, steal their stuff, get shot at, repeatedly.'

'I've seen this shit before. Getting out is probably a pretty fucking good idea about now, it doesn't look the thin rainbow streak will be able to hold them back for long.'

'Where do we go then?'

'How the fuck should I know? Derse, always wanted to see the dark planet.'

'Jack how sneaky do you think you are on a scale from one to ten.'

'I don't fucking know, hid from the fuzz often enough, six.'

'Two, tops.'

'Fuck you.'

'and you just proposed to go and hide in a planet where we will quite literally will stick out like sore thumb.'

'I can take em.'

'You reckon you could take out one of their battleship groups?'

'Fuck yes.'

'Think you could take out the queen?'

'Erm.'

'No one can escape the miles.'

'Fuck. Fucking Queens, fucking red miles, fucking arrrrrgghh.' She calms herself, the flickering of energy around her body dissipating. 'So what do you think we should fucking do then Sniper Bitch where do we lay low and how do we stop ourselves going fucking mad while we do it.'

'We go to Derse, we need to check the lay of the land, learn the capacities of the people, scout. The gods blundered into the entire thing like children when they were here. They were children after all.'

'Didn't you just fucking say that...'

'You couldn't hide on Derse. Yeah. You are the only troll in this little universe. You just need practice is all. We just lay low for a bit, prepare for our expedition then we sneak onto the dark moon and steal everything.'

'Lay low where? There aren't exactly a lot of fucking options, the Prospitians have a fucking bonfire with out names written on it and the Dersites probably have our fucking faces on wanted signs on every fucking surface across the entire fucking planet. Did I miss anything?'

'The pajamas.'

'Oh yes and our only clothes are these golden fucking pajamas.'

'Perhaps I can be of assistance.' the women turned to find the White Queen standing at the door to the bedroom, resplendent in her rainbow gown, crown and the ring or orbs tenfold, her true artifact of office.

'oh fuck.' Jack launches herself into the air, hovering outside the window as psycic energy coursed around her.

'Your majesty, how can we help you.' Jane bows graciously to the tall white carapacian attempting to salvage the conversation.

'The simplest answer to your conundrum is that you make use of the veil. At present the asteroids of the veil are largely unoccupied, there are no tidings of war between Prospit and Derse, the battlefield has not yet formed and the cold war has been in a state of stasis for near a century. Several asteroids house caches for our agents on Derse as well as supplies stockpiled for when the war inevitably comes. I will provide you with the coordinates of several caches for you to prepare for your operations, if necessary we can make available aspects of our intelligence network to aid you.'

'What's the catch?' jack floats back into the room, levitation second nature to the powerful kinetic.

'You are aware of the fate of Prospit once you begin your session.'

'The Great War.'

'Which we are destined to loose. Prospit will always loose the great war, its the way the game works to make the players seize their destiny, the final challenge. In the process our armies will be destroyed, our world ruined the last remaining remnants of my people will be flung through the gates onto the world you came from to rebuild civilization.'

'Fuck That.'

'Jack?'

'Fuck this shit. Planets being razed because that's the way it has to be. Never fucking give up. Have you seen the shit in the clouds, the place we come from is no safer than this place, we have genocidal fucking robots two kilometers long who have the sole aim of fucking up any and every fucking space faring civilization. If you aren't safe here you sure as hell wont be safe there.' the Troll paces back and forth in midair thinking. 'Right, new fucking plan. First we go to to the veil, then we plan and figure out the shit we need. Then we fucking stop this whole war thing, make this place safe, escape, fuck up, whatever, the genocidal robots and live happily ever fucking after.'

Jane eyballs the troll wryly, a scarred eyebrow arching in her direction.

'Don't you give me that fucking look, we don't do this it's all on our heads.' Jane continues to eyeball the Troll.

'You know what the people who made me made me for. Hmm. War. Fucking war. I was made to kill every fucking thing I could find. They always told me that it was inevitable that I would kill everything and nothing I could do would stop it. They wanted a monster they could unleash on their enemies, they even had little wars in the works to get me all warmed up for when they needed their pet monster.'

She crashed on the bed, breaking most of the springs in side it. 'This is just that all over again.' catching her breath she turns to the Queen. 'Isn't it?'

The queen nods solemnly.

'Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck it all. Can we stop it?'

'The nature of belief of Prospit and Derse are diametrically opposed. They would keep our kingdoms in eternal stasis without never knowing the closure of the Great Croak and the end of our duties.' The Dreamers look silently at each other for a moment before Jane speaks up.

'End?'

'Once the players have left for their new home our holy duty is done, the remaining people must leave the incisisphere before the time runs out.'

'Runs out?'

'In order to protect the Speaker of the Great Croak the incisisphere dissolves back into the furthest ring from whence it came, its purpose fulfilled.'

'and everyone dies.'

'Nothing is left save the speaker.'

This time it is Jane who twitches involuntarily.

'Fuck, Alright, we need a plan which doesn't involve the deaths of 4 billion people.'

'I suggest that you head for the veil and do what you can to attempt to prevent the war. The great croak is ultimately a choice you have to make.'

With that the queen hands them a folder, crisp paper sheets detail a number of locations throughout the veil, all accessible via transportalyzers deep under the surface of Prospit and the basics of the supplies they contain. The information is vague, operational security keeping superfluous details to a minimum.

'This one.'

* * *

Standing in front of the screen Jane scans the data displayed, it was an old prospitan system, obsolete by almost a hundred and fifty years by her measure. The basic omnitool she owned when she was a child was vastly more powerful than the machine. Nonetheless it had access to a veritable treasure trove of information on the Dersite civilization and structure, the best of it on the Dark Arcagent, Jack Noir. Noir was a mirror of his prospitan counterpart, less tidy, more efficient, less tolerance for paperwork, better leadership, more stabby, less smashy, very nearly the same person. His entourage carried the same similarities, a big one with little imagination, a little ditzy one, a tall, slimy, ambitious one, but the greatest find was his office, the dark replica of the cubicle of vigilance carried the same four special fenestrated panes.

'Jack, get off the ceiling, we have our first target.'

'Fuck, how did you find me?'

'Jack you're a natural flier, is there anywhere else you'd hide?'

'Under the floor?'

'On the ceiling of the room below us. Don't worry this trip is a snatch and grab, all inside, ceilings and buttresses. And... I'm in. They're using standard transportalyser protocols from first contact, I've hacked it. We can go to almost any transportalyser on the planet.'

'Whats the target?'

'Jack Noir'

* * *

In the cubicle of vigilance Noir fumed, they had gone fucking missing, he just had'em there on the fenestrated pane in their little asteroid hideaway planning some shenanigans, fucking rouges. He'd have to send the droll out with a few surprises for when they get back. In the meantime he needed to find them. The Rouge did something to the computers on the asteroid, the pair of them dressed in purple robes and disappeared through a transportalyser. They didn't arrive at its other end. He had his panes flipping randomly through the most probable destinations to find the two escaped heroes but the three walls of his cubicle were having a near impossible time finding them.

Three walls of his cubicle.

They were already here.

He spun, Regisword prepared to put and end to any foolish prospitan coffin stuffer he could find.

The room was empty the vaulted corridor stretched far into the distance in each direction. The thieves could already be making their escape. He turns to the two remaining screens setting them to scan the room for the coffin stuffers, barely registering the loss of another priceless artifact. The screens flicker over the room at every angle finally pulling up a purple smudge against the crenelations.

He looks up, a purple shape is poorly hidden in the crevices of the great hall where the arcagent of Derse keeps his office. Instinctively he reaches for his pistol, unleashing a barrage of energy at the vague shape which shifts and darts against the roof.

The shape begins to fall but before it intersects the floor it makes a sharp turn away from the arcagent, shooting down the corridor and flitting between cover positions. He gives chase, fucking rouges and their fucking shenanigans, he'd kill the lot of the fucking coffin stuffers but oh no the royalty can't have that. It would interfere with "The Plan". Fuck the plan, Fuck the royals and fuck this bitch making him run and cutting into valuable shirking time.

He rounds another corner, a dead end, this time the fucker will pay. Hands grab him from behind, twist his carapace uncomfortably and pry both his pistol and his stabbin' knife from his hands before kicking him into the wall with enough force to fracture the purple masonry. Ah yes, in this session they aren't children but space commando's, Jack made a personal note to find the bastard who though it would be a good idea to have a bunch space commando's running around the medium and stab them. Repeatedly.

The form disappeared from view again, speeding around a corner as the damaged arcagent pried himself from the wall to give chase. Clearing the corner he took a few steps before again finding the hands of the soldier on him, removing some more of his knives. He pit the floor, pinned by the enemy, ahead of him another purple figure stood near the cubicle of vigilance. A corona of blue energy coursing off it's body it threw a small black orb into his desk.

First his paperwork went, he was glad to be rid of the damned stuff, acceptable losses sucked into the tiny orb. His desk followed, stretched into a thin streak as it was sucked into the singularity, the cobbles of the floor beginning to follow as he watched the remaining two windows twist in the middle and begin to be torn out of reality. The bloodthirsty carapacian began to swear profusely, only the choicest sick burns graced his foul lips as he struggled against his captor only to feel a sharp blow against the thin plate at the back of his head. His white eyes rolled into the back of his head.

Someone would pay dearly for this.

* * *

In another asteroid in the dark expanse of the veil the two heroes surveyed their spoils.

In the centre of the floor of the lab jane drops the pair of windows, each still active but only showing faint static. Jack on the other hand generated a singularity, dropping a large slab of masonry, a desk, a chair, the two remaining Panes and a substantial amount of unfinished paperwork.

'So what'd we get? Anything good?

'They can't track us anymore, not without the windows, their information security is over a hundred and fifty years out of date and we have the desk of the chief Dersite intelligence agent.'

'So what next?'

'With out the windows the Dersites will have no way of tracking us and since they're still using old security protocols we can go almost anywhere on either of the two planets.'

'So what. We sabotage their armies? Take a battleship for a joyride?'

'The battleship is a good idea but we should check up on the rest of the players before we invest in any wholesale destruction.'

* * *

'Who's this douchebag?'

The women stood in one of the dersite towers. Jutting from the surface of the moon the tower was a mass of regular angles, solid corners, defensible windows, massive lengths of a purple metal unique to Derse, it the top in a angular box was the abode of one of the heroes, the Heir of chaos.

'"this Douchebag" is Garrus Vakarian he's a Csec detective, he helped me save the galaxy this one time and has pulled my fat out of the fire more time than I care to admit.'

'He has a _Fleet and Flotilla_ poster on his wall.'

'And awful taste in movies. He actually had the crew watch that on our last movie night.'

'Is it as bad as they say?'

'Worse, would you believe it spawned a weekly holo. Garrus and Tali follow it religiously.'

Jack smirks 'Not such the badass then, is he?'

'He once decapitated a pair of Geth prime at ten kilometers while under heavy fire Jack. Didn't even blink. But no once you get to know him he's just as normal as the rest of us.'

'Jane...'

'As normal as any other high level C-Sec detective with abysmal film taste who has spent six months fighting killer robots from beyond the veil.'

'Fair point.' She prods the sleeping Turian prompting him to swat his nose, flex his mandibles and mutter some unreproducible obscenities before rolling over and burying his head in the pillow.

'He isn't awake.'

'I don't know how he'd take this, he believes that the gods are just fairy tales we tell to keep our children in line.'

'he'll find out soon enough.'

* * *

Weeks later, but not many.

In the room far above the surface of the dark moon the Heir of Chaos awakens. A momentary shock and he flies out of bed. Another momentary shock as he collides with the roof, though an avian species flying is new to him. He turns at a polite cough in from the door of his room.

Oh shit.

'Good morning Heir, of should I call you Mr Vakararian.'

'I.. Umm... Ah.. Garrus will be fine your majesty.'

'Excellent Garrus, you may call me the Black Queen and here there is no need to be so formal. Your people await.'

'My people?' she lays a thin strong arm across Garrus' shoulders and guides him to the window. Outside the streets are filled, the great Boulevard of Heroes is a Seething sea of black, Dersite citizens of all shapes and sizes are crowding the streets. In the sky battleships of dreadnought size float in parade formation across towards the tower each launching fireworks by the hundred, flanking them is dozens of dropships each a boxy corvette sized craft floating majestically through the sky. Each and every vessel bore the emblem of Derse, a purple pentagon adorned with a crown identical to the one the queen wore and ten towers rising from it's surface.

'You're preparing for war.'

'Yes Mr Vakarian, we are. Tell me about the Reapers.'

* * *

Codex:

The Great Croak:

In the legends of the gods and ancestors the great croak is the initial goal they strive for and the believed purpose of sburb. In the legends it is said that the great croak happens once the heroes complete their quest and give creation to a new universe. The legends state that the new universe takes the form of a giant frog. While scholars of many races dispute that this is the actual meaning of this passage in the legends the oldest of the trolls and many native Skaian peoples, particularly those who claim or who are claimed to have interacted with the gods themselves confirm that yes, the great croak is the birth cry of a giant frog and that yes this frog is a new universe. They then admit that this does not win them many converts.


End file.
